A Century in Russia

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Olive Schreiner: A Century in RussiaAuthor(s): Apollon Davidson and Irina FilatovaSource: English in Africa, Vol. 20, No. 1 (May, 1993), pp. 39-48Published by: Institute for the Study of English in Africa, Rhodes UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40238704

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Olive Schreiner: A Century in Russia

Apollon Davidson and Irina Filatova

OliveSchreiner . .belongs

no moreto us thanEmily

BrontebelongstoYorkshire;hebelongs o the whole world.

Roy Campbell1

Few specialists in South Africa and Britainare aware of Olive Schreiner's

early popularity in Russia. In their authoritative bibliography of Olive

Schreiner,Ruth First and Ann Scott includea 'complete*list of translations

of her writing.2 Although it contains translations nto Czech, Ukrainianand

Esperanto,no Russiantranslations rementioned.

One of the present authors, Apollon Davidson, spoke with Ruth First

about this and gave her a list of Russian translations. She said she would

fill in the gap if and when she returned o Olive Schreiner. The conversation

took place in Maputo on 13 August 1982. Four days later Ruth First was

killed.

It was exactly a hundredyears ago that Russians read Olive Schreiner's

writings in their language for the first time. In 1893 Russian translations

of herstory "A Dream of Wild Bees" and of her famous novel TheStory ofan African Farm were publishedin St Petersburgby one of the best Russian

literary ournals,Vestitilenostrannoj iteratury{ForeignLiteratureHerald).

Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland was published by the ForeignLiterature Herald in 1897, not many months after it appearedin English.4It was the first of many editions. Peter Halket was so popularthat it was

published not only "for an intelligent reader"(as the inscription on the

cover of one of the editions ran),but also in a series for the general reader,"Book after Book."

Short stories from Dream Life and Real Life were also published in

Russia at the end of the nineteenthcentury,and not only in St Petersburg,but also in a big provincial city, Nizhnij Novgorod. In 1898 the local

newspaper Nizhegorodskij Listok {Nizhnij Novgorod Leaflet) published"The Hunter," and in 1899 "The Gardens of Pleasure," "The Artist's Secret"

English inAfrica 20 No.l (May 1993)



40 A. DAVIDSON and I. FILATOVA

and "Three Dreams in a Desert." These stories were incorporatedinto an

essay about Olive Schreiner,writtenby MaximGorkywho later became one

of the best-known Russian and Soviet writers.5

At the turn of the century, after the beginning of the Anglo-Boer War,Olive Schreiner's writings became a common phenomenon in Russia.

They were published in all the most significant journals and magazinesNiva, RusskaiaMysl, Zhurnaldlia vsekh,Literaturnyevechera,Zhivopisnoeobozrenie, Novyj vek, Mir Bozhij, Russkoie bogatstvo.6 In 1900 her

Dream Life and Real Life was published as a book and in 1904 a second

edition appeared.7Newspapers and magazines kept their readers informed

about events in Olive Schreinert life and her remarkson differentsubjectsand political issues.

Not only her fiction but also her political pamphlets were extremely

popular. Woman and Labour was translated into Russian and publishedin St Petersburg in 1912, only a year after it appeared in English. It

attractedmuch attention.

In spite of all the tragedies Russia went through during its three

revolutions and the Civil War, interest in Olive Schreiner's writingpersisted into the twenties. In 1929 her second novel From Man to Man

was translated nto Russian and published in Leningrad.

Russian literary critics were extremely generous to Olive Schreiner.

One of them, for instance,comparedPeter Halket to Leo Tolstoy's novels.10

Another thought that "the writer's sublime fantasies sometimes remind

one of Dante."11 Dream Life and Real Life was seen as employing

"poetic images comprising the core issues of morality,"12and Gorkywrote: "In her allegories Olive Schreiner perfectly combines highly

significant ideologicalcontentand artisticnarrative.Simplicityand lucidity

are the main merits of her short stories. Cheerfulness and deep belief in

the strength of the human spirit form the internal significance of her

allegories."13

Olive Schreinerwas considered the greatest authorityon South African

and many other problems, such as "the woman question." Her opinion on

those issues was often quoted.14Russianauthorsthoughtthat she possesseda gift of prophecy, and sometimes called her "the Cape Cassandra." They

wrote, for example, that she warned about the possibility of the Anglo-Boer War and its dramatic results, and one magazine even compared her

to John the Baptist:"She also preachedin the desert."15What was it that made Olive Schreiner so popular in Russia? For the

majorityof Russian readersOlive Schreiner's novels and stories were the



OLIVE SCHREINER 41

first encounterwith South African realities. It is true that they read manynovels about this distant land long before they had a chance to read Olive

Schreiner. Some of these novels were not bad at all, for instance, those byJules Verne, Mayne Reid and Louis Boussenard. However, this readingcame to Russia from Western Europe. Even the best authors never visited

South Africa. They used it ratheras scenery for theirromanticadventurous

stories. As for the cheap colonial adventure novels that flooded the

marketat the time,they,

of course, couldgive hardly any

idea of what the

true South Africa was like.

It is not by chance that an article introducing the 1897 translation of

Peter Halket, which in fact was the first Russian critical essay about Olive

Schreiner, favourablydistinguished her writing from "romantic fables and

stories about hidden treasures, mysterious ancient civilisations, lion and

buffalo hunts, fights with savages."16

The realistic trend in Russian literature,represented by writers such as

Gorky, was gaining momentum in Russia. There could hardly be a more

appropriate moment for Olive Schreiner's writing to be presented to

Russian readers. By the time Olive Schreinerbecame known to them theymay already have had some interest in South Africa, largely of a romantic

nature. Her realisticapproach tself made this countryeven more attractive

to them. Her books developed their interest in South African history,cultureand modes of living.

Even more important than that, Olive Schreiner's approach to South

African problems was not just realistic, it was also democratic. It made

her writing particularlyappealing to the Russian intelligentsia of the time.

The manner in which the Russian critics wrote about Africans in Olive

Schreiner'snovels,

could well beapplied by

them to describe their own

illiterate and underprivileged compatriots. "The real sufferers here,"observed one of them, "are those who constitute immense massive strata

under South Africa's European population those savages, its original

inhabitants,who pay so dearly for their weakness and lack of culture."17

At the turn of the century, the Anglo-Boer Warprovoked an upsurge of

interest in South Africa all over the world. Olive Schreiner's book An

English South African's View of the Situation attractedacute attention in

Russia. Her democratic standagainst the British invasion of the Transvaal

and the Orange Free State turned her into a heroine in Russia. Russian

newspapers often published her pictures beside those of bearded Boer

fighterswith their armsand ammunition. Journalistspublishedromanticised

versions of hersuffering duringthe War.18




At that time the Russian public had many reasons to admire the

Afrikaners,many more to hate the British. Two tendencies in the Russian

popular perceptions, democratic anti-imperialist on the one hand, and

anti-British on the other, may have been primarily responsible for the

success of Peter Halket and other similar works. However, there was

much more to Olive Schreiner's popularity in Russia. Roy Campbellwas

right: Olive Schreiner was not just a South African writer. In her books

the Russianintelligentsia sought

and found answers to many questionswhich it was trying to resolve for itself.

The article introducingthe first translationof Peter Halket particularlystressed that Olive Schreiner wrote not only about the problems of her

own country, but of humanity as a whole. An author, or authors (thearticle was entitled "Fromthe Publishers"),wrote that her Dream Life and

Real Life "interpreted uch problems as the search of truth,the meaning of

life, the essence of real art,of humanlove, and ... the women's liberation

struggle."19 Every good writer seeks to interpretthese problems. Olive

Schreiner's interpretationwas remarkablyclose to that of the majority of

Russian intellectuals.It is a well-known fact that Olive Schreiner was familiar with several

leaders of the world socialist movement. She may or may not have been a

socialist herself. There is room for speculation, since she was largely

preoccupiedwith feminist issues. Whateverthe answer, her political stand

was very close to that of the majorityof intellectuals in pre-revolutionaryRussia. She expressed her ideals most clearly in Woman and Labour. It

is not by chance that this big book was translated into Russian so quicklyand became so popularwith the Russian reading public.

The author of the introduction tothe Russian edition of Woman and

Labour thought that the problems discussed in the book were particularly

importantfor Russia. "That is why," he wrote, "if Olive Schreiner asked

me, to whom she should dedicate her book, I would try to persuade her to

dedicate it to young Russian women."20

The author did not know that Olive Schreiner had already become

interested in the fate of a young Russian woman. In January 1891 she

wrote her brother,William Schreiner:"1*11e very glad if you'll lend me

Marie Bashkirtseffs [diary]when you've done. Yes, it would be wonderful

to read or write a true account of a human soul, everyone would love the

person because they would see in it "myself;" we are all more or lessone."21 It is no wonder thatthe young Russian painterMariaBashkirtseva

attracted Olive Schreiner's attention. Her diary, published at the end of



OLIVESCHREINER 43

the nineteenthcentury,was among the most interestingand frank women's

writings of the time.

There was yet another Russian woman of whom Olive Schreiner

thought very highly. In Woman and Labour she mentioned only two

women as "the most highly evolved human females," George Sand and

the Russian scholar Sofia Kovalevskaia."2

Evidently, Olive Schreiner knew Russian literature rather well, and

admiredsome of it. In September 1891 she wrote about Bazarov, the heroof Ivan T\irgenev'sFathers and Softs: "Bazaroff .. is the man I like best in

theworld of fiction. If therewere such a manliving I would marryhim."

She was closely following political events in Russia. In January 1905

the Tsarist police opened fire on a peaceful workers*demonstration in St

Petersburg. This event came to be called "Bloody Sunday," and it gave a

startto the first Russian revolution. On 5 Februarythe Cape Town Social

DemocraticFederationorganizeda meetingof protestagainstthe repressionin Russia. It was held in the Good Hope Hall. If Olive Schreiner had

attended we would probably never have known what she said there. But

we are lucky:she was ill, and sent a letterof apology which was published.We found it in the old CapeTown newspaperTheSouthAfrican News,

Hanover, February3, 1905.

Dear Sir ... I deeply regret that I cannot be with you at the meetingon Sunday afternoonto express my sympathy with the Russian strike

movement. Absent bodily, I shall yet be with you in thought;and yetmore with those who in far-off Russia are today carrying on that

age-long war of humanity towards a larger freedom and a higher

justice, a war which has been waged through the ages, now by this

people, and then by that;then by a race; now, for religious freedom,then for the right of free thought and free speech; but which, when

looked at from the highest standpoint, has always been essentiallyone battle, fought with one end, now with success, and then with

seeming failure, but always bringing nearer by minute and

imperceptible degrees that time in the future, when for a free and

united humanity, a truly human life shall be possible on earth. To-

day the flag is passing into the hands of the great Russian people.With how much of immediate success, or failure, the battle will be

fought, we cannot say; but that it will be with ultimate success, we

know,and that it is a battle not

foughtfor themselves

alone,but for

all the world, that we know also. I see it stated in this morning's

paper that Maxim Gorki is to be hanged. A few years ago I should

have believed it impossible that such a thing should happen at the




beginning of the twentieth century. I do not now. For the honour of

human nature, we hope it may not be so; but I hardly know that for

him we need so very deeply regret it. It is from the scaffold that the

sons of humanity have passed into immortality in the hearts of the

race. One very beautiful fact is brought home to us by this struggleof our fellows in Russia. Divided and half-developed as our human

raceyet is, a certaindim consciousness of humansolidarity s beginningto dawn. From the drought-smitten, barren plains of South Africa,from the hearts of the great cities all over Europe, from end to end of

the world thoughts of sympathy and fellowship are stretchingthemselves out to our brothers in Russia, so that whether they are

lying in Russian fortresses or perishing in the streets of Poland, theyare not really dying, or suffering alone. We are all with them. I

regret especially that I cannot be at your meeting, because I should

meet very many of our Russian Jews, members of that great race

which has given to Europe its religion and to the world some of its

sons. As a South African it is a matterof pride andjoy that we have

been able to give refuge and to accept among our citizens manywhom oppression drove from their birthland. If the great struggle of

our fellows in Russia tendsonly

to diminish theirsufferings

there, it

will not have been in vain. I believe that in this movement in Russia

we are witnessing the beginning of the greatest event that has taken

place in the history of humanity duringthe last centuries.4

Now, after seven decades of Bolshevik rule, many in Russia tend to

idealize life under Tsarist autocracy. Olive Schreiner's indignantmessage

may seem strange to such people.

The last Russian EmperorNikolas II did not shoot or imprisonmillions,as Stalin did, but life was certainly not rosy before 1917. There would not

have been three revolutions one afteranother,

if it were otherwise. Olive

Schreiner had good reason to condemn Tsaristautocracy.

Gorky's life was not in danger. Olive Schreiner's informationabout it

was wrong, but her earnest desire to defend a fellow writer deserves

admiration. Speaking on his behalf, had she known that six years earlier

he had published her short stories in Russian, and written an article about

them? Highly improbable. Her stand was not an act of gratitude, it was

an act of justice.

A year-and-a-half later, with the upsurge of the Jewish pogroms in

Russia, Olive Schreiner wrote a letter to a meeting of solidarity with the

Russian Jews that was organized in Cape Town on 1 July 1906. She

protested against anti-semitism not only in Russia but in South Africa as

well: "The poor Jew, the Russian exile, who comes to our shores with his



OLIVESCHREINER 45

clothes bound up in his handkerchief and a couple of pence in his

pocket or no pence at all; that is he who forms the undesirable element

we desire to keep out."25

Olive Schreinerwas deeply impressed by the 1917 Russian revolutions.

In 1918, when she was alreadyvery ill, she wrote: "I've read all the books

on Russia . . . that I have been able to get hold of during the last year."The following year she predicted that "America and Russia are the two

pointsat which the world's

historyis

goingto be settled."26 One doubts if

there is a prophetto tell the world at which point its history is going to be

settled now, since we have moved beyond the epoch in which Olive

Schreiner's forecast came true.

For several decades, from the beginning of the thirties until the middle

of the seventies, Olive Schreiner was nearly forgotten in Russia. In 1955

her centenary was marked only by a short article in a popular literary

magazineInostrannaia literatura (Foreign Literature).

In 1972 Apollon Davidson included a chapter about Olive Schreiner

in his book South Africa: Birth of Protest, 1870-1924 } In 1974 a

volume of her selected writings was published in Moscow.28 In his

preface to it Davidson gave an overview of her writing and analysis of her

views, stressing her unusually farsighted approach to the race problem in

South Africa.

Particularly important in that respect he considered her small book

Closer Union, a series of letters about the future of South Africa, published

by the Transvaal Leader in 1908. Some of Olive Schreiner's ideas from

this book were quoted in the preface to the Russian volume:

South Africa must be a free man's country. The idea that a man born

in this country, possibly endowed with many gifts and highly

cultured, should in this, his native land, be refused any form of civic

or political right on the ground that he is descended from a race with

a civilisation, it may be, much older than our own, is one which must

be abhorrentto every liberalised mind. I believe that an attempt to

base our national life on distinctions of race and colour, as such, will,afterthe lapse of many years prove fatal to us.

The problem of the twentieth century will not be a repetition of

those of the nineteenth or those which went before it. The walls

dividing continents are breakingdown; everywhere European,Asiatic

and African will interlard. The world on which thetwenty-firstcentury will open its eyes will be one widely different from that

which the twentieth sees at its awaking. And the problem which this

centurywill have to solve is the accomplishment of this interaction of




distinct human varieties on the largest and most beneficent lines,

making for the development of humanity as a whole, and carriedout

in a manner consonant with modern ideas and modern social wants.

It will not always be the Europeanwho forms the upper layer; but in

its essentials the problem will be everywhere the same.

We in South Africa are one of the firstpeoples in the modernworld,and under the new moral and materialconditions of civilisation, to be

brought face to face with this problem in its acutest form. On our

powerto solve it

regallyand

heroically dependsour

greatness.If it

be possible for us out of our great complex body of humanity (its

parts possibly remaining racially distinct for centuries) to raise up a

free, intelligent, harmonious nation, each partacting with and for the

benefit of others, then we shall have played a partas great as that of

any nation in the world's record.

But if we fail in this? if, blinded by the gain of the moment, we

see nothing in our dark man but a vast engine of labour;if to us he is

not a man, but only a tool; if dispossessed entirely of the land for

which he now shows that large aptitudefor peasant proprietorship or

the lack of which among their masses many great nations are

decaying; if we force him permanently in his millions into thelocations and compounds and slums of our cities, obtaining his labour

cheaper, but to lose what the wealth of five Rands could not returnto

us; if, uninstructedin the highest forms of labour,without our havingaided him to participate in our own; if, unbound to us by gratitudeand sympathy, and alien to us in blood and colour, we reduce this

vast mass to the conditions of a greatseething, ignorant proletariatthen I would ratherdraw a veil over the futureof this land.

As long as nine-tenths of our community have no permanentstake

in the land, and no right to share in our government, can we ever feel

safe? Canwe ever know peace?

One dissatisfied man or woman who feels themselves wronged is apoint of weakness in a community; but when this condition animates

the vast majority of the inhabitantsof a State, there is a crack down

the entire height of the social structure. In times of peace it may be

covered over by whitewash and plaster, and one may profess that all

is well; but when the time of conflict and storm comes, that is where

the social structurewill give way.In the end the subjected people write their features on the face of

the conquerors.9

Was Olive Schreiner really a prophet? These words of hers were very

important n 1908, when they were written. They were still more importantin the seventies, when they were translated into Russian. Their real

significance and depth have become obvious only now, in the nineties.



OLIVE SCHREINER 47

The preface to the Russianedition of Olive Schreiner's works contained

the poem by Roy Campbell dedicated to her: "Buffel's Kop (OliveSchreiner's Grave)." It is a wonderful epitaph.

In after imeswhenstrength rcourage ail,

MayI recall hislonelyhour: hegloomMovingoneway:all heaven n thegpleRoaring: ndhighabove theinsulted omb

Aneagleanchored n fullspreadof sailThat rom tswingslet fall a silverplume.

Strange as it may seem, Olive Schreiner was not a very convenient

author for Soviet authorities. Her protest against anti-semitism could not

be mentioned, for at that time the official view was that anti-semitism

never existed in Russian history. Trooper Peter Halket was not included

in the volume, because the publishers found religious motives in it.

Olive Schreiner's letters about Bloody Sunday could not be publishedin Russian before 1917, her religious ideas, after 1917. Her stand against

anti-semitism was unacceptable to both the Tsarist and the Sovietcensorship.

Whatever the futurefate of Olive Schreiner's writing in Russia, she has

already played her role in the history of that country. For a long time she

was associated with the democratic tradition in Russian literature. Her

feministwriting may have been one of the majorsources of and theoretical

grounds forwomen's liberation in Russia.

It was she who opened an exceptionally long list of Russian

translations of South African writers: Peter Abrahams,André Brink, J.M.

Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, Lawrence Green, Jack Cope, Athol Fugard,

Ingrid Jonker, Uys Krige, Alex La Guma, Sarah GertrudeMillin, DavidOpperman, Alan Paton, William Plomer, Richard Rive and Benedict

Vilakaziare now partnot only of South African,but also of Russian culture.

Olive Schreinerwas the first.

We hope that the acquaintanceof Russian readerswith Olive Schreiner

will continue.

NOTES

1.Roy Campbell,

Collected WorksVoUII.(Johannesburg:

AdDonker, 1988),608.

2. RuthFirst and Ann Scott, OliveSchreiner, (London:AndréDeutsch, 1980),371-76.




3. Vestnik nostrannoi literatury, God tretii, sentabr'-dekabr', 1893.

4. Vestnik nostrannoi literatury, God sed'moi, oktiabr', 1897.

5. M. Gorkii,"AllegoriiOlivii Shreiner,"Nizfiegorodskiilistok, 56, 26 fevralia

1899.

6. Field, Russian Viouglit, Journalfor AllyLiterary Evenings,Artistic Survey,New Age, Lord's World,Russian Wealth.

7. O. Shreiner, Grezy i snovideniia (Sankt-Peterburg,1900, 1904).

8. O. Shreiner, Zhenschina i trud (Moskva: Izdanie S. Dorovatovskogo i A.

Charushnikova, 1912).

9. O. Shreiner,Ot odno£O k dru2omu (Leningrad: Mysl\ 1929).

10. Russkaia mysV,avgust 1900, s.277.

11. Vestnikinostrannoi literatury, God sed'moi, oktiabr', 1897, s.21-2.

12. Zhurnaldliavsekh, iiun' 1900, s.786.

13. M. Gorkii,"AllegoriiOlivii Shreiner,"Niziiegorodsldilistok,56, 26 fevralia

1899.

14. See, for example, VI. Lesevich, "Oliviia Shreiner i ee proizvedeniia,"Russkaia mysV, 1901, kniga VIII.

15.MirBozhii,

oktiabr'1901,

s.41-2.

16. Vestnik inostrannoi literatury, God sed'moi, oktiabr' 1897, s.19, 21-2.

17. Zhurnaldliavsekli, iiun'1900, s.767-68.

18. See, for example, "Oliviia Shreiner,"Mir Bozliii, 1901, oktiabr', otdel

vtoroi,S.41.

19. Vestnikinostrannoi literatury, God sed'moi oktiabr' 1897, s.19, 21-2.

20. N. Chaikovskii, "Predislovie," O. Shreiner, Zhenschina i trud (Moskva:Izdanie S. Dorovatovskogo i A. Charushnikova.1912), s.9.

21. Olive Schreiner, Letters 1871-99, ed. Richard Rive (Cape Town: David

Philip, 1987), 184.

22. Olive Schreiner, Woman and Labour (London, T. Fisher Unwin: 1911),248.

23. Olive Schreiner, Letters, 1871-99, 195.

24. SouthAfrican News, 6 February1905.

25. The Letters of Olive Schreiner, ed. S.C. Cronright-Schreiner(London:T. Fisher Unwin, 1924), 395.

26. Ibid., 359, 362.

27. A.B. Davidson, luzhnaia Afrika- stanovlenie sii protesta, 1870-1924

(Moskva: Nauka, 1972), s.273-76.

28. Oliviia Shreiner,Afrikanskaiaerma. Rasskazy (Moskva:Xudozhestvennaia

literatura,1974).

29. A.B. Davidson, "Oliviia Shreiner ee knigi,"Oliviia Shreiner,Afrikanskaia

ferma* >\ &0.

Documents

A Century in Russia