It is an enormous leap from Gogol to Korolenko[3], Gorky[4], and Kuprin[5]. These are living authors, although they belong rather to the past century in their motives and modes. Vladimir Korolenko is a writer whose very name causes the heart of every Russian to beat with emotion. Not for the greatness of his art: as an artist he ranks among the lesser. It is the charm of his personality that places him far above all his colleagues. His long years of exile in Siberia, his never-flagging championship of the oppressed classes and races, his tireless encouragement of the young beginners, and his smile, the deep, broad smile that flows like a sunny stream through his writings, have endeared him to his countrymen beyond parallel. Korolenko is the bridge between the heroic, idealistic seventies and the ultra-individualistic moderns. His stories are not idylls, yet they smile; he deals with tragedies, describes horrifying situations, but he bears no ill feeling for the universe, he loves it with all its evils and follies, loves it with that keen understanding which spells forgiveness. Gorky tells us that he owes to Korolenko not only his discovery and introduction to the public, but also his style. I seldom trust an author’s self-criticism. Gorky differs from his alleged teacher in his style as well as in his philosophy. Korolenko is gentle, mild, refined, loving, forgiving. Gorky is rude, loud, hating, revenging. Both have known misery and hardships, both have rubbed shoulders with the humiliated and down-trodden. But Korolenko came out of the crucible with a radiant smile, with universal compassion and sympathy. Gorky neither forgets or forgives. His body and soul shriek out vengeance for man enslaved, maimed, bestialized. Korolenko and his “disciple” both exalt human personality, but the first does so indiscriminatingly, wholesalely, while Gorky glorifies only the strong, proclaims the “beauty of power”, and scorns the weak worms, the lazy adders who are content to stagnate in the mire. Gorky’s philosophy may appeal to us who have drunk from the waters of Zarathustra, but Korolenko’s art is purer, free from preaching, and hence more convincing.