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Second and third- rate writers, like Merezhkovsky, Andreyev, and Artsybashev, have found their way into England and are still supposed to be the best Russian twentieth century fiction can offer. The names of really significant writers, like Remizov and Andrey Bely, have not even been heard of.

So he early became the most popular of the literary novelists of the years before the Revolution. A far more significant writer is Michael Prishvin. He belongs to an older generation and attracted some attention by good work in the line of descriptive journalism before he came in touch with Remizov.

In spite of the enormous difference of style, methods, and aims Bely approaches in many ways the effects and the achievements of Proust. Remizov is very different. He is steeped in Russian popular and legendary lore. His roots are deep down in the Russian soil. He is the greatest living master of racy and idiomatic Russian.

The story, by the way, is dedicated "To A. M. Remizov, the Master in whose Workshop I was an apprentice." Tuesdays, Friday, Saturday males Wednesday, Thursday females Price for washing adults 50kop.gold children 25kop.gold Place: there is no place of action. Russia, Europe, the world, fraternity. Dramatis persona: there are none.

In Petersburg there appeared a whole group of young novelists who formed a sort of professional and amicable confraternity and called themselves the "Serapion Brothers." Other writers emerged in all ends of Russia, all of them more or less obssessed by the dazzling models of Bely and Remizov. All the writers of this new school have many features in common.

During these years the novel entirely disappeared from the market. For three years at least the Russian novel was dead. When it emerged again in 1922 it emerged very different from what it had been in 1917. As I have said, the surface "literature" of pre-Revolutionary date was swept away altogether. The new Realism of Remizov and Bely was triumphant all along the line.

"A Christmas Carol" by Dickens and "The Accursed Prince" by Remizov. Korsh Theatre. "Much Ado about Nothing" by Shakespeare and "Le Misanthrope" and "Georges Dandin" by Moli=8Are. Dramatic Theatre. "Alexander I" by Merezhkovsky. Theatre of Drama and Comedy. "Little Dorrit" by Dickens and "The King's Barber" by Lunacharsky.

In this case as in others I prefer to go direct to the fountain-source and read Bely's Petersburg and the books of Remizov, which for all the difficulties they put in the way of the reader and of the translator will at least amply repay their efforts. But Pilniak has also substantial virtues: the power to make things live; an openness to life and an acute vision.

The most interesting portion of Pilniak's works are no doubt his longer stories of "Soviet life" written since 1921. Unfortunately they are practically untranslatable. His proceedings, imitated from Bely and Remizov, would seem incongruous to the English reader, and the translation would be laid aside in despair or in disgust, in spite of all its burning interest of actuality.

While all these things were going on on the surface of things and sharing between themselves the whole of the book-market, a secret undercurrent was burrowing out its bed, scarcely noticed at first but which turned out to be the main prolongation of the Russian novel. The pioneers of this movement were Andrey Bely and Remizov.