Should The Poets Mobilize?
This question is eagerly discussed in the Russian press, and we hear strong arguments both for and against the participation of the Russian poets in the general mobilization of all Russian resources,—intellectual, as well as material.
If the Russian economists, political writers, philosophers, and thinkers are doing their share, why should not the poets, artists, and novelists devote their energies toward helping the nation to reach its goal?
The Russian poets did respond, but we hear now from the critics, that, from the purely literary standpoint, the war output of poetry has been unsuccessful and has actually lowered the high standards of Russian literature. Influential critics suggest that this is no time to write or to sing of war. The great literary epopee of the war of 1812 was written by Tolstoy fifty years after the bones of the French grenadiers were laid in their fraternal graves. The rattle of sword does not go with lyric song.
On the other hand, the famous Russian writer, Leonid Andreyev, insists that the poets of the country should share the burdens of the war. He himself has become a rather mediocre newspaperman, writing exclusively on the war. "The poet,"—says Andreyev,—"is the only one who can and should bring home to the masses of the Russian people the horrors of war. A powerful description of a shot from a 42-centimeter gun might produce an even more powerful impression that the shot itself. The horrible war is undermining the very substance of Russia's national life, and the men of letters, the whole intellectual army of the land, should rise, and, instead of the 'liturgy to Beauty', should sing and cry about the war, ring the alarm-bells, blow the trumpet, and arouse the Nation's conscience."
"To hear the war,"—says Andreyev,—"means to place a new valuation upon our internal life, our joys, our sorrows, and our aspirations. It means to place a stone upon the grave of Yesterday, and to change the Present."
Those who disagree with Andreyev, plead in the name of Art, which, in their estimation, should remain apart from such cataclysms as the war, and continue its work. They point out that Archimedes concluded work on his famous theorems under
