The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1924-09-26
AMERICAN WRITER'S IN RUSSIA
(Maurice G.. Hindus, in Saturday
Review of Literature)

(Maurice G. Hindus, in Saturday
Review of Literature)
The Russian has abandoned his
old literary gods for new ones,
pecially enjoys are, curiOusly
enough, Americans. There ara
four American authors who are
the idols of the Russian reading
public now. They are Americas
ambassadors in Russia, destined
in my opinion, to WELD a more
profound influence over Russian
social and literary life than any
official American that has ever
been sent from Washington to
Petrograd.
1t is easy enough to guess who
one of these authors is. Jack Lon
don has always been a favorite in
Russia. He still is, though not as
much as he was in the day when
l attended school in Russian
village. The school children do
not read him as much as they once
did.
1t is easier still to surmise who
another one is. 1t is as natural
for the Russian to take to Upton
Sinclair as it is for the American
to take to Gene Stratton-Porter.
Both strike at responsive chord
in national character. 1t is il
backward Russian proletarian who
has not read and grown excited
over Jimmie Higgins and THE
Jungle" In my recent wander
ings in European Russia whenever
l called upon editors of provincial
journals one of the questions l was
always sure of being asked was
whether l knew Upton Sinclair
Communists took it for granted
that he was a member Of the par
ty. They talked of him as "our
Sinclair"
If it is easy to understand the
appeal that Jack London and
Upton Sinclair make to the pres
ent-day Russian reading public, it
is quite battling to explain the re-
markable vogue of 0. Henry.
What is there in him that can stir
revolutionary people? What in
spiration can the apostles of the
so-called proletarian culture or
the Russian masses draw from
him? He has no message for the
revolutionary populace. Not one
of his stories has the flamboyant
class appeal that the tamest of
London's or Sinclair's tales pos
SeSS.
True, he has written of common
folk burdened with packs of every
day worries and troubles. But 50
has CheklDff, so has Gorky. SO
has many another illustrious Rus
sian writer. And Gorky is ever
! the passionate rebel. And Chekhoff,
, too, manages to squeeze a goodly
portion of biting dissent into his
pages. But o. Henry at best only
| ripples with good-humored protest.
Yet Gorky and Chekhoff are pushed
into the background and o. Henry
is elevated to a high pedestal
The most surprising literary
phenomenon in Russia is not the
popularity of o. Henry or Sinclair
or London, but of an American au-
thor who has not the slightest at
finity with any of these men, and
who has not the faintest trace of
a message of social protest.
Edgar Rice Burroughs is the rage
from one end of the country to the
other. Anybody who reads any
thing reads the Tarzan stories -
soldiers, proletarians, peasants,
intellectuals. State and private
publishing houses are keeping
their presses hot churning out edi-
ton after edition of the Tarzan
tales, which are snatched up as
soon as they are placed on the
market.
While on a train once from Mos
COW to Nizhny-Novgorod, be-
came acquainted with a salesman
from one of the leading private
publishing houses who was on his
way to the big fair to sell books.
He unpacked his case and showed
me his samples" quite an assert
ment Of publications on engineer
ing, hygiene, agriculture, chemis-
try. social problems, and then
pointing to a copy of Tarzan of the
Apes, he said: "I'll sell more of
this than of all the others put to-
gether." | have not the least
doubt but he did. l do not recall
a single bookshop in any of the
! cities l visited or a single news
stand at any of the railroad sta
lions but had a prominent display
of the Tarzan books.