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I do not trust that love for country which despises its chronicles or is not interest-
ed in them: we must know the present; we should be informed about the past[44].
III.
Karamzin’s interest in history was becoming his major preoccupation; already in
1801, he saw clearly his future career as an historian, as his first ode to Alexander
shows. During his editorship of the Messenger he took the opportunity to share
the fruits of his study with his readers, hereby serving both his personal interests
and the wider aims of the journal.
Nathalie, the Boyar’s Daughter, The Bird of Paradise, (Rayskaya ptichka, 1791), the
opening pages of Poor Liza, as well as the unfinished poem Il’ya Muromets (1794),
showed Karamzin’s willingness to use (or abuse) Russian history and legend; but
Martha was his first true historical tale. In December 1802, the month before he
published Martha, he gave what might be regarded as the theoretical as well as the
patriotic justification for such attempts. His essay On the Incidents and Characters
in Russian History, Which May Provide Subjects for the Arts (O sluchayakh i
kharakterakh v rossiyskoy istorii, kotoryye mogut byt’ predmetom khudozhestv)
is primarily concerned with possible subjects for painting, but Karamzin’s sugges-
tions were directed at all creative artists. Closely linked with this article and with
the fictional re-creation of Martha is another essay by Karamzin, entitled
Information on Martha the Burgomistress from the Life of St Zosima (Izvestiye o
Marfe Posadnitse, vzyatoye iz zhitiya Zosimy, June 1803). Apart from the new
information it gives on Martha’s character, the essay is a call to “a skilled pen” to
“represent for us a gallery of Russian women, famed in history or deserving of this
honour”[45]. His list of such women essentially continues the earlier one contain-
ing suggestions for suitable subjects for painting. Karamzin was possibly prompt-
ed once more by foreign example; Mme de Genlis, in an article translated by
Karamzin, had written: “Most of all I would like to represent with my brush the
most famous women in history, their main traits and virtues, their lives”[46].
As a result of his historical studies Karamzin came to acknowledge the importance
of preserving folk songs and proverbs. He said with approval of Bogdanovich that
“he published Russian proverbs in which were preserved the valuable remains of
our forefathers’ thought, their true conceptions about good and their wise rules for
life”[47]. Karamzin himself printed a Yakut folk song which “depicts with simplic-
ity and life the attachment of these good-natured people to animals, which are
indeed worthy of man’s gratitude”[48]. Karamzin saw the need to collect all man-
ner of historical anecdotes and legends; indeed, this was a patriotic duty:
“How good it would be to collect all Russian legends which are related either to
history or old customs! I would praise the Russian who would undertake to trav-
el round some of the regions of our fatherland with such an intention…”[49]
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He regretted that the oral accounts of old people who remembered Peter the
Great, Anne and Elizabeth had not been copied down and religiously pre-
served[50]. He himself recorded an alleged meeting with an old couple, who had
been married more than eighty years; his old peasant is made to utter a string of
proverbs and near-proverbs – obviously indicative of antique wisdom – in a typi-
cally stylized sentimental manner:
“Ya khotel znat’ lyubyat li oni drug druga?” – “Kak ne lyubit’! muzh da zhena
bol’she, chem brat da sestra”. “Boites’ li vy smerti?” – “Chego boyat’sya? My, slava
Bogu, pozhili. Smert’ ne beda”. “Tebe ne zhal’ budet starushki?” – “Chego zhalet’!
Komu nibud’ nadobno umeret’ prezhde.” – “A yesli ona perezhivyot tebya?” – “Nu
chto zhe? v svete ne bez dobrykh lyudey; dadut yey ugolok”[51].
Karamzin was anxious not only to preserve information about the past but also to
have recorded in print all the glorious deeds of the present for the edification of
posterity:
“We are to blame for having as yet no collection of true anecdotes about Russian
national virtue which would disarm all misanthropes.
I would not include in such a collection anything fictional or untrue – nor any-
thing exaggerated: truth by itself is attractive”[52].
There was a tendency to find Russian equivalents for anything the West could offer
and English example in all things pro bono patriae seemed to present a particular
challenge to Russian patriotism. The third article in the opening number of the
Messenger told of an English scheme to erect a monument to the country’s past
glories and victories[53], and a footnote to a later translation recorded the dedica-
tion of a monument in Westminster Abbey by a “grateful King and Country» to a
fallen soldier[54]. Karamzin formulated the need for such information about
Russia to be recorded in the first story of Russian “Good Deeds” (blagodeyaniye)
to be printed in the Messenger:
“Acts of philanthropy are an adornment of their age and country. Whenever and
wherever men act virtuously, every sensitive heart rejoices; but the nearer the phi-
lanthropist is to us the greater our pleasure. If a Russian touches me with his mag-
nanimity, then I rejoice as a man and still more as a son of Russia. A patriot who
loves virtue in all lands worships it in his own country; it is the greatest service to
the state, and its example is not only consoling but useful in civil relations, since it
has a salutary influence on general morals”[55].
He ended by inviting “all patriots, all friends of mankind, to send him information
about events that are consoling for the feeling heart”[56]. Soon stories of unsung
Russian virtues were being printed in increasing numbers in the Messenger. The
honesty of the Russian peasant was extolled together with the generosity of the
gentry[57].
If Karamzin collected proverbs, folk-songs, anecdotes of the past and present out
of a belief in their patriotic and historical value, he also contributed historical arti-