Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-06T00:21:49.729Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Time Horizon in Russian Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Alexander Gerschenkron
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The substantive portion of this paper is intended to be incorporated later into a comprehensive study of time horizon in economic history. Hence an elucidation of the concept and of its main aspects should precede the presentation and interpretation of the relevant material that has been drawn from a scrutiny of Russian literature in the nineteenth century, that is to say, from novels and plays. In this connection, it will have to be explained why belleslettres can and should be regarded as one of the sources of insights into the problems involved.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , December 1975 , pp. 692 - 715
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. To provide further elucidation to the twin concepts of time preference and time horizon, let me refer to the recent book by John Hicks (Capital and Time, Oxford, 1973) where (on pp. 12-13) Sir John quotes delightfully from Boccaccio's introduction to Decameron. The impact of the Plague on the people of Florence, when everybody expected to be dead on the next day, resulted in wild consumption and complete neglect of investment. In other words, time preference tended to infinity and time horizon to zero.

2. The untranslatable phrase Gogol uses “to live on the foo-foo” either has the meaning shown in the text, or implies living on other people's money, and certainly without any plan.

3. N. V., Gogol', “Nevskii prospekt” in Sochineniia v dvukh tomakh (Works in Two Volumes), vol. 1 (Moscow, 1971), pp. 455–56 Google Scholar.

4. Dostoevskii, F. M., Igrok ﹛The Gambler) in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v tridtsati tomakh ﹛Complete Collection of Works in Thirty Volumes), vol. 5 (Leningrad, 1973), pp. 225–26 Google Scholar.

5. In general, with a few exceptions, the Germans were not treated well in Russian belles-lettres. The well-known exceptions are : Lemm in Turgenev's Nest of Gentryjolk, Karl Ivanych in Tolstoy's Childhood, and the anonymous virtuoso in Goncharov's A Usual Story. Shtolts in Goncharov's Oblomov may be added to the short list.

6. A profoundly idiomatic and hence untranslatable adverbial term, expressing the optimistic feeling that somehow things will work out very satisfactorily, as well as faith in one's good luck. (To do things na avos1 means to do them without adequate preparation and certainly without any clear reckoning.)

7. Shchedrin, N. [M. E. Saltykov], Za rubeshom (Abroad) in Polnoe sobrcmic sochinenii (Complete Collection of Works), vol. 14 (Leningrad, 1936), p. 69 Google Scholar.

8. Goncharov, I. A., Oblomov (Moscow, 1947), p. 432 Google Scholar.

9. These terms again defy the search for fairly equivalent English nouns. Hence a description of the connotations involved must substitute for a proper rendition. The samodur is above all a willful, arbitrary person for whom the assertion of his will, the sic volo, sic iubeo, stat pro ratione voluntas, is the overriding determinant of his action. It follows from the previous description that a samodur will act on the spur of the moment, unbothered by any previously conceived long-range plans. Considering the importance of the character in Russian belles-lettres and in Russian critical literature, it seems well-justified to use the Russian term in transliteration.

10. The German term for the operation is Wechselreiterei.

11. Mel'nikov, P. I., Na gorakh ﹛On the Mountains), vol. 1 (Moscow, 1958), pp. 196–97 Google Scholar.

12. Ostrovskii, A. N., Svoi liudi—sochtemsia (Being Relatives We Shall Settle Our Accounts) in Izbrannye sochineniia (Selected Works’) (Moscow-Leningrad, 1947), pp. 3–34Google Scholar.

13. An extended treatment of samodurstvo in Ostrovskii's plays is contained in the well-known series of articles by Dobroliubov. But Dobroliubov, even though his work evoked Karl Marx's friendly attention, confined himself to personal and social aspects of the phenomenon, mostly ignoring its weighty economic implications except for an occasional remark that the hero of the play under discussion in the text acts “against his own advantage” and some comments on the picayune character of the homespun Russian swindler. See Dobroliubov, N. A., “Temnoe tsarstvo” (“The Dark Realm“) in Literaturnokriticheskie stat'i (Moscow, 1937), pp. 80–283 Google Scholar, and particularly pp. 148 and 162-63.

14. “Money is abundant, but life is boring” is a widespread complaint. For example, see Ostrovskii, A. N., Goriachee serdtse (The Hot Heart) in Izbrannye sochineniia, p. 250 Google Scholar.

15. Ostrovskii, A. N., Beshenye den'gi (Mad Money), ibid., pp. 285–323Google Scholar.

16. Ostrovskii, A. N., Posledniaia shertva (Last Sacrifice), ibid., p. 551 Google Scholar.

17. See N. V. Gogol, Dead Souls.

18. To use Dobroliubov's celebrated phrase (N. A. Dobroliubov, p. 3S4). It is worth noting that because of the aforementioned limited interest of the critic in economic aspects the modest “ray” which is to be explained in the text was not recognized as such.

19. Ostrovskii, A. N., Beshenye den'gi in Isbrannye sochineniia, particularly pp. 291, 307, 321, 323Google Scholar for the references to the budget.

20. Ostrovskii's play was written in 1869-70.

21. Saltykov-Shchedrin, M. E., Gospoda Golovlevy (Moscow, 1964)Google Scholar and Poshekhonskaia starina (Moscow, 1950).

22. Golovlevy, p. 48; Starina, p. 12.

23. Starina, ibid.

24. Note, however, that Ostrovskii, too, has in his collection also a figure of a gentry samodursha. A. N. Ostrovskii, Vospitannitsa (The Raised Girl) in Izbrannye sochineniia, pp. 115-33.

25. For the preceding references to Saltykov-Shchedrin, see Golovlevy, pp. 119, 243-

57. The author equips his loathsome hero with the quality of almost unbelievable hypocrisy which is something that, of course, touches on the reality-unreality problem. And it is interesting that in characterizing the hero the author explicitly says of him : “He is neither a TartufFe, nor a contemporary French Bourgeois, but a purely Russian hypocrite.“ Indeed, the whole figure is “purely Russian” and hence of particular interest.

26. Boborykin, P. D., Kitai-Gorod (a mercantile sector of the city of Moscow) (Moscow, 1947), p. 181 Google Scholar. The novel was published in 1882.

27. Boborykin, ibid., pp. 178 and 181.

28. Boborykin, ibid., pp. 179 and 243.

29. Although also some curiosities in this respect must be noted : In Count Sollogub's well-known story, for instance, the observation is made that Russian merchants think nothing of breaking obligations made out in writing, but consider it a matter of honor to fulfill oral promises and obligations. See Sollogub, V. A., “Tarantas” in Povesti i rasskazy (Stories and Tales) (Moscow-Leningrad, 1962), pp. 233–36Google Scholar. Interestingly, along with the transmittal of a large sum of money without receipt, the merchants involved discuss approvingly a drastic case of cheating coarsely a buyer of flour.

30. See particularly Mamin-Sibiriak, D. N., Privalovskie milliony (The Millions of the Privalovs) in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (Complete Collection of Works), vol. 1 (Petrograd, 1915)Google Scholar.

31. Mamin-Sibiriak, ibid., pp. xxiii and xxix.

32. To some extent, degeneration in merchant families is at least hinted at in Gorky's Foma Gordeev, a novel that must be presently referred to in a different context. 33. Dostoevskii, F. M., Dnevnik pisatelia : 1876 (Paris : YMCA-Press, n.d.), p. 408 Google Scholar.

34. For all this see Nekrasov, N. A., “Sovremenniki” (“The Contemporaries“) in Polnoc sobranie sochincnii i pisem (Complete Collection of Works and Letters), vol. 3 (Moscow, 1949)Google Scholar, particularly pp. 107-41.

35. Boborykin, P. D., Del'tsy in Sochineniia ﹛Works), vols. 7 and 8 (St. Petersburg-Moscow, 1885-86)Google Scholar. The rendition of the title is difficult. In German “Gcrschaeftemacher“ would be a fair translation. “Men of business” would be a possibility, but since the author of the novel treats mainly the shady dealings and the shady connections of the government officials with the Gncender types, the rendition “The Jobbers” may be preferable since one of the definitions of the term is “one who improperly uses a public office, trust, or service for private gain or party advantage” (Oxford Universal Dictionary, fifth meaning) . The novel plays in the first half of the 1870s.

36. Dostoevskii, F. M., Podrostok (The Youngster) (Moscow, 1955), p. 83 Google Scholar. This novel, too, was written in 1875.

37. Gor'kii, M., Foma Gordeev in Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 2 (Moscow, 1938), p. 162 Google Scholar. Italics supplied.

38. Ibid., pp. 272-73, 340-41.

39. Ibid., pp. 305-6. As was mentioned before, availability of extensive economic information is inherent in the concept of a high time horizon. It might be added at this point, that even in earlier Russian literature a Volga merchant uses his knowledge of the prospective arrival in St. Petersburg of boats from Liverpool carrying American cotton for giving much appreciated advice to a mercantile friend with regard to the expected decline of cotton prices. But this involves merely a rational calculation for the next business deal rather than a plan for the future. See Mel'nikov, P. I., Na gorakh, p. 159 Google Scholar.

40. Chekhov, A. P., Vishnevyi sad ﹛The Cherry Orchard) in P'esy (Moscow-Leningrad, 1947), pp. 227–28Google Scholar. Italics supplied.

41. Tolstoi, L. N., Sobranie khudozhestvennykh proizvedenii (Collection of Artistic Works), vol. 8 (Moscow, 1948), p. 203 Google Scholar.

42. Atava, S. [S. N. Terpigorev], Oskudenie (Impoverishment), vol. 1 (Moscow, 1958), pp. 32, 120, 126Google Scholar. Atava may be considered as having walked in the footsteps of Saltykov-Shchedrin.

43. This is glaringly true of the article by Andrei, Donskov, “Predvestniki Vishnevogo sada,” The Nezv Revieiv, 112 (1973) : 93–99Google Scholar. In this article Mr. Donskov, , without mentioning Anna Karenina, discussed some similarities between The Cherry Orchard and the following two plays : a play by N. la. Solov'ev and A. N. Ostrovskii (Svetit da ne greet in Ostrovskii, A. N., Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 9 [Moscow, 1960], pp. 305–73)Google Scholar and a play written by Solov'ev alone ﹛Likvidatsiia in Teatr [Moscow-St. Petersburg, 1883]). The former play was written in 1880 and the latter two years later. In either play there is as a background the theme of the inefficiency and impoverishment of the gentry estates and their sale to enriched peasants. But the theme is entirely overshadowed by two love stories, and the alleged similarities, influences, and imitations in Chekhov's play are too trifling for words. From a literary point of view, one may suggest that if Mr. Donskov had read with the attention and comprehension they deserve Anatole France's two brilliant articles “Apologie pour le plagiat” (Anatole France, La vie litteraire, vol. 4 [Paris, n.d.], pp. 156-65, 166-76), he probably would have abstained from publishing his piece. From the point of view of economic history, which alone matters in the present context, it is significant that in neither play reviewed by Mr. Donskov is there a shadow to suggest a high time horizon on the part of the prospective buyers of the two estates.