INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR MIKHAIL OSIPOVICH GERSHENSON was primarily a historian of literature, but at the same time an excellent critic and publicist. To his mind the underlying motive of all creative efforts is the pursuit and communication of ultimate truth. Both Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, as exponents of the novel-writer's art, were animated by the conviction that religion is the fundamental activity of man. In the field of literary history and criticism, too, there were in Russia a few great writers who dedicated themselves with consuming passion to the search of the Absolute Good. Gershenson was one of the greatest among them. It may be fairly assumed that he holds the highest place for the past twenty-five years among Russia's publicists. Like Carlyle, he was at once a philosopher and literary critic of the highest standing, a philosopher among critics and a critic among philosophers. His deft, penetrating analysis laid open the magic of Pushkin's verse and unveiled the charms of Turgenev's reverie, but those artistic niceties were |