And yet even these few relics of the past have exercised a powerful influence upon Russian literature, ever since it has taken the liberty of treating other subjects than purely religious ones. If Russian versification took the rhythmical form, as against the syllabic, it was because this form was imposed upon the Russian poets by the folk-song. Besides, down to quite recent times, folk-songs constituted such an important item in Russian country life, in the homes alike of the landlord and the peasant, that they could not but deeply influence the Russian poets; and the first great poet of Russia, Púshkin, began his career by re-telling in verse his old nurse’s tales to which he used to listen during the long winter nights. It is also owing to our almost incredible wealth of most musical popular songs that we have had in Russia, since so early a date as 1835, an opera (Verstóvskiy’s _Askóld’s Grave_), based upon popular tradition, of which the purely Russian melodies at once catch the ear of the least musically-educated Russian. This is also why the operas of Dargomýzhsky and the younger composers are now successfully sung in the villages to peasant audiences and with local peasant choirs. The folk-lore and the folk-song have thus rendered to Russia an immense service. They have maintained a certain unity of the spoken language all over Russia, as also a unity between the literary language and the language spoken by the masses; between the music of Glínka, Tchaykóvsky, Rímsky Kórsakoff, Borodín, etc., and the music of the peasant choir--thus rendering both the poet and the composer accessible to the peasant. THE ANNALS And finally, whilst speaking of the early Russian literature, a few words, at least, must be said of the Annals.