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p In the seventies N. I. Naumov was extremely popular with the most progressive strata of our Narodnik (then the most progressive) “intelligentsia”. His works were read most avidly. The collection Strength Can Break Straw was particularly successful. Now, of course, times have changed, and no one will show the enthusiasm for Naumov’s works that people showed some twenty years ago. But his works can still be read today with interest and not without profit by all those who are not indifferent to certain "cursed questions" of the present day; and the historical interest connected with them will be considerable as long as people continue to take an interest in the period of the seventies, an important and instructive one in many respects.

p N. I. Naumov is usually regarded as a Narodnik writer of fiction. And rightly so, of course, because he is, firstly, a writer of fiction and, secondly, a Narodnik. But his fiction has a character of its own. Whereas generally speaking in all our Narodnik fiction writers the publicislic element is allotted a very important place, in the case of Naumov it dominates the artistic element completely. We would go even further: in the vast majority of cases it would be strange to speak of an artistic element in Naumov’s works at all: it is almost always totally absent in them; Naumov probably rarely set himself the aim of artistic creation. His aim was a different one. In his sketch Mountain Idyll the petty bourgeois Nikita Vasilyevich Yeryomin, a man eager for knowledge and not without a certain erudition, whom fate lias cast among the ignorant, non-Russian population in the foothills of the Altai, remarks that it would be good "to attack in a newspaper" the terrible exploitation to which the non-Russians are subjected by the kulaks and even by their own authorities. But he is restrained by the fear that he might perhaps be made a laughing-stock by other writers who are above him on the social ladder. Moreover he does not know "where to begin”. Naumov also conceived a desire to “attack” the terrible condition of the Russian peasants and the non-Russians, with which lie was most familiar. As an educated person able to wield a skilful pen he knew "where to begin" and was not afraid of ridicule from other writers. So he wrote a series of stories, “studies”, “scenes”, sket- 129 ches and so on. All his works are works of fiction in form, but even a cursory reading shows that this form is something external to them, something which has been artificially imposed on them. For example, he wanted to “attack” the truly appalling and scandalous exploitation to which workers coming from the gold mines at the end of their summer employment there are subjected in the Siberian villages which lie on their path. He could, of course, have done this in a simple article or a series of articles. But he thought that a fictional work would make a stronger impact on the reader, and he wrote some “scenes” bearing the general title of The Web. Some of these scenes are written quite brilliantly and reveal an undoubted artistic talent in the writer. As an example we would quote the scene in the shop of the "peasant trader" Ivan Matveich where the half-drunken worker Yevsei is forced to purchase goods (Works, Vol. I, pp. 88-97). But this is one of the happy exceptions. Most of the other “scenes”, while constantly showing the author’s excellent knowledge of the environment described by him, are terribly long-drawn-out and excruciatingly artificial. These scenes have been patently constructed in order to portray this or that form of exploitation. The characters in them are not real people, but anthropomorphical abstractions who have received from the author the gift of speech, or rather, the gift of garrulity, which they abuse most dreadfully with a view to enlightening the reader. Particularly garrulous are the exploiters, who occasionally say openly about themselves: do not look for either shame or conscience in us.  [129•*  But they have to be garrulous: garrulity is their prime and almost only duty; if they were not garrulous, they would be no use to Naumov. He usually portrays the character of kulaks by means of dialogues. He is travelling somewhere on official business, drops in on a kulak and begins to ask him questions to which the kulak gives the appropriate replies. The questions are usually very naive, and sometimes even out of place. For example, the rich kulak Kuzma Terentich in The Web assures us that his life is nothing but " downright hard labour”. Apropos of this the author asks: "If you are aware, Kuzma Terentich, that the trade in which you are engaged 130 is both difficult and dangerous, why do you not leave it, in order to endure such toil and danger no longer, eh?" (Vol. I, p. 65). The kulak argues that this is impossible; the conversation becomes animated and continues for several pages, which is exactly what the author wants,—his naive question was put precisely to this end. In the sketch Mountain Idyll the afore-mentioned petty bourgeois Yeryomin gets talking and mentions that Siberian officials break the law and not only do not prevent the sale of vodka to non-Russians, but actually sell it themselves in non-Russian settlements. "Surely you don’t mean that they travel into the mountains just to sell wine?" asks the author. Yeryomin naturally exclaims: "No, of course not!" and then gives a detailed description of the officials’ exploits. Thus there emerges an interesting sketch which you will probably read with great pleasure. But if you remember the naive question that prompted this sketch, if you bear in mind that the author, i.e., rather, the person who narrates the story, is himself an official, and that therefore the question put by him is incomparably more naive, you are bound to be amazed at the primitive simplicity of Naumov’s literary devices; you will agree that he can be called a writer of fiction only with certain reservations.

p The author does not always take the little trouble required to think up even naive questions. More often than not he repeats stereotype phrases such as "Is this all really true?" or "You’re not making all this up, are you?" And these phrases always stimulate the loquacity of those with whom he is conversing to a perfectly sufficient and sometimes, as we have already said, even excessive extent.

p These loquacious collocutors usually have a good command of popular language.  [130•*  Unfortunately they "stutter with embarrassment" more than is necessary, speaking, for example, as follows:

p “W... w... what have you got against me? Have I ever d... d... done you any harm? I’ve always b... b... been good to you”, etc. (Vol. II, p. 146).

p You must agree that there is too much “stuttering” here and that the character is expressing his embarrassment in the same way that bad actors sometimes express it in a provincial theatre.

p And here is another distinctive feature of the language of Naumov’s loquacious collocutors. All of them "speak ironically”, "retort ironically”, "ask ironically”, etc., etc. They hardly utter 131 a single word without “irony” or “sarcasm”. Here is an example:

_p “’So you want to warm yourself with salvation in this birdhouse, do you?’ he asked ironically.

_p ’"Yes, salvation,’ the other replied.

_p “’And when did you first think up this nonsense?’

p ’"When God punished me for my sins.’

_p “’Aha,’ he drawled, ’so there were a lot of sins, were there, tee, hee? And are they keeping you nice and warm?’ he inquired ironically..." (Vol. I, p. 209).

p Or:

p “’Be so kind as to wait, sir ... sit down, and perhaps the weather will soon change in your favour.... Though I can’t say as it’s all that comfortable here in my place!’ he continued ironically" (Vol. I, p. 30), etc.

p This “irony”, always painstakingly recorded by the author, which is replaced only by “sarcasm” or “mockery”, eventually bores and irritates one as the unnecessary repetition of the same old thing. The author could easily have spared the reader this irritation, by leaving it to him to note irony when it appears in the characters’ words. He did not do so. He wanted to portray the character of the Russian people. To his mind irony is one of the salient features of this character: so he sticks in “ironies” and “sarcasms” everywhere, without it ever occurring to him that they might bore the reader.

Naumov has never possessed great artistic talent. But such a sketch as By the Ferry or The Village Auction alone is enough to acknowledge him as a talented writer of fiction. Many individual scenes and pages in the two volumes of his works also testify to his artistic talent. However, he did not cultivate it, only rarely allowing it to develop fully, and more often sacrificing it deliberately for the sake of certain publicistic aims. This was most harmful to his talent, but in no way detracted from the practical effect of his works.