THE PEASANT AND THE EMANCIPATION.
Russian Literature and the Apotheosis of the Mujik--Various Classes of
Peasants--Origin and Causes of Serfdom--Labor Dues and the Obròk--
Situation of the Peasants before Emancipation--Napoleon III., Liberator of the Serfs.
ON one of the Paris stages a French piece has been played of late a play of Russian manners and Russian authorship--original and incomplete, a play which was favorably received by the French public, although it is not likely to have been really comprehended: I mean The Danishefs.* This comedy, or, more truly, drama, which depicts Russian society prior to the emancipation, has a peasant for hero, and its subject may be said to be the moral preeminence of the mujik. The nobility, conceited and frivolous,-- the clergy, dependent and cringing,--the merchant, newly enriched and servile,--cut a poor figure by the side of the man of the people, the quondam serf Òssip. "This man is great, this man is worth more than we are, mother," the young Count Danishef says of him. These words give the keynote to the piece. The conclusion to which we are led, perhaps unconsciously, by this rustic drama, is the apotheosis of the man of the people to the detriment of the classes privileged by birth, knowledge, or fortune. From____________________