CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE SO-CALLED SOCIOLOGICAL SUBJECTIVISTS; LAVROV AND MIHAILOVSKII
I
§ 115.
PETR LAVROV became well known in Europe as a theorist and leader among the revolutionary refugees. Of his numerous essays, pamphlets, and longer works, a few only have been translated, notably the Historical Letters. He also contributed several essays to European socialist periodicals, chiefly French and German.
Lavrov's literary physiognomy is peculiar to himself. Pisarev, with youthful impudence, termed him a scholastic, but this was a libel. Lavrov was a conscientious scholar, what Russians might call "a German professor." He was diligent as an analyst, but lacked constructive talent and had little originality, and was a vigorous but not an incisive thinker. As an author he was cumbrous, and of his opus magnum, which was to be a history of thought, nothing more was ever completed than an introduction to the introduction. But he was prolific as a clandestine poet, and his Russian "Marseillaise" is still sung.[1]
- ↑ Historische Briefe aus dem russischen übersetzt von S. Dawidow. Mit einer Einleitung von Dr. Charles Rappoport, 1901. These Historical Letters vere first published during the years 1868–1869 in the periodical Nedělja, being signed with the pseudonym, Mirtov. In 1870 they were published in book form. In 1872, Lavrov prepared a new edition which, however, was not issued until 1891, when it had been revised and had been supplemented by a letter written in 1881 on the Theory and Practice of Progress. This second edition is the basis of the following sketch. Lavrov was a prolific writer of essays and books, his books being no more than enlarged essays. Consult also Arnoldi (Lavrov), The Task of History, the Project of an Introduction to
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