complicity; and this was the result: personally guiltless of any offence against my brother, I have become in the eyes of all those unconcerned and those of my brother himself, a Cain."
The new Russia is being born while I write these lines, and intelligent Americans are discussing nothing else except this great world event--comparable in importance even to the colossal war itself. If we wish to understand educated Russia--which has brought about the change--many-sided, large-hearted and intellectually more brilliant perhaps than the educated class of any other nation, we cannot do better than to read and think over what that galaxy of Russian genius that has composed the present volume has written. We must not forget that the educated class in Russia is almost as numerous as in the other great nations, and perhaps plays an even more important r?le in Russia than it does in other countries. What Russia has lacked has been neither an educated class nor masses capable and ready to be trained to any kind of modern employment, but a great technically trained, free and organised "intellectual middle class"--an expression I am forced to coin for my present purpose. It is hardly necessary to prove this assertion. The world is well acquainted with Russian genius in literature, art, music, philosophy, sociology, economics, history, and the higher realms of science. Moreover Russia is not without technological schools, but the proportion of her population employed in the scientific organisation of industry and business is insignificant in comparison with that of other countries--owing, of course, to the backward state of Russian industry and Russian government. But this fact, important as it is, must not obscure the equally important fact that the educated and cultivated class in Russia, speaking several languages, and personally familiar with the civilisation of one or more foreign countries, exercises an influence over Russian society and Russian public opinion undoubtedly stronger than that of any other educated class whatever--with the possible exception of that of Germany. We cannot hope to understand the new Russia unless we understand the character and point of view of the Russian "intellegentsia," and this is nowhere so clearly, succinctly and interestingly set forth as in "The Shield."
WILLIAM ENGLISH WALLING.
Greenwich, Connecticut.
PREFACE
Published by the Russian Society for the Study of Jewish Life under the joint editorship of three eminent men-of-letters, Gorky, Andreyev, and Sologub, the original Shield saw the light of day last year in Petrograd. The book consists of numerous studies, essays, stories and poems, all these contributions to the symposium on the Jewish question coming exclusively from the pen of Russian authors of non-Jewish birth. In making a selection for the present volume, I have thought it advisable to give decided preference to the publicistic articles of the original collection. Thus, the present version contains practically all the various important studies and essays of the Russian Shield, while most of the stories have been omitted, without great detriment to the book. I have also had to sacrifice, for obvious reasons, all the poetic contributions to the original, signed by such great masters of modern Russian poetry as Balmont, Bunin, Z. Hippins, Sologub, and Shchepkina-Kupernik.
My thanks are due to Dr. Louis S. Friedland and Professor Earle F. Palmer for going over a considerable portion of the present volume.
A. YARMOLINSKY.
CONTENTS
MAXIM GORKY, Russia and the Jews 3
LEONID ANDREYEV, The First Step 19
VLADIMIR KOROLENKO, Mr. Jackson's Opinion on the Jewish Question 37
PAUL MILYUKOV, The Jewish Question in Russia 55
M. BERNATZKY, The Jews and Russian Economic Life 77
PRINCE PAUL DOLGORUKOV, The War and the Status of the Jew 95
MAXIM KOVALEVSKY, Jewish Rights and Their Enemies 103
DMITRY MEREZHKOVSKY, The Jewish Question as a Russian Question 115
VYACHESLAV IVANOV, Concerning the Ideology of the Jewish Question 125
MAXIM GORKY, The Little Boy, a Story 133
FYODOR SOLOGUB, The Fatherland for All 143
VLADIMIR SOLOVYOV, On Nationalism 155
COUNT IVAN TOLSTOY, Concerning the Legal Status of the Jews 159
LEONID ANDREYEV, The Wounded Soldier, a Story 165
CATHERINE KUSKOVA, How to Help? 171
S. YELPATYEVSKY, The Homeless Ones 181
MICHAEL ARTZIBASHEF, The Jew, a Story 193
RUSSIA AND THE JEWS
Alexey Maksinovich Pyeshkov, better known under the assumed name of Maxim Gorky, was born in 1869. In 1905 he was arrested and imprisoned because of his political convictions. After the revolutionary days of 1906 he left Russia and settled on the island of Capri. At the beginning of the present war he returned to Russia and took an active part in the public life of the country. He is at present residing in Petrograd, where he edits a monthly of distinctly radical tendencies.
THE SHIELD
RUSSIA AND THE JEWS
BY MAXIM GORKY
From time to time--more often as time goes on!--circumstances force the Russian author to remind his compatriots of certain indisputable, elementary truths.
It is a very hard duty:--it is painfully awkward to speak to grown-up and literate people in this manner:
"Ladies and gentlemen!
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