The Vogue of Schiller in Russia and in the Soviet Union

Abstract

The influence of Schiller looms large at the beginning of modern Russian literature. As early as 1782 the author of Die Riiuber became known to the students of Moscow University through the lectures of Professor J. G. Schwarz who was Schiller's first literary standard bearer in that city. On September 19, 1787, upon the recommendation of F. M. Klinger, the actors of the Petersburg Court Theatre performed the first act of Schiller's Don Carlos on the amateur stage at Gatchina castle.? The Russian premieire of the whole drama followed on November 9 of the same year in Riga. In 1788, Ivan Sokolov, a Moscow University student, translated the drama Kabale und Liebe, and in 1792, Nikolay Sandunov, the brother of the famous comedian Sila Sandunov, produced a Russian version of Die Rdiuber. In the following year N. M. Karamzin wrote a poem entitled Song of the World which is a rather free elaboration of Schiller's dithyrambic ode An die Freude. Schiller's dramas, especially Die Rduber and Kabale und Liebe, were a favorite theme of discussion in the Friendly Literary Society (founded 1801), one of the first literary circles in Russia dedicated to the transplanting of the poetry of Wieland, Schiller, and Goethe onto Russian soil.2 The first critical essay on Schiller in Russia appeared 1805 in the Moscow periodical Avrora. Written by De-Sanglen, one of the magazine's editors, it contained aesthetic and 'philosophical' characterization of Schiller's works.3 This article, together with the subsequent translations of Schiller's dramas in the twenties and thirties, contributed much to the development and refinement of literary taste in Russia. From an aesthetic point of view, Schiller proved a real revelation to the educated classes. But Schiller's idealism appealed above all to the restless imagination of the younger