As part of a study of the treatment accorded the Soviet Union in the Social Studies program of the American secondary school, a test was given in the spring of 1945 to approximately 2,500 high school seniors enrolled in social studies courses. The purpose of the test was to discover how much significant knowledge about the Soviet Union was possessed by high school seniors. While Dean Philip J. Rulon of the Harvard Graduate School of Education was kind enough to advise the author in the preparation of the test, he is of course, not responsible for any errors in procedure or in interpretation of the test results.

In his account of the military organization of the Turks (= Magyars), the Byzantine Emperor Leo the Sage repeatedly compares the Magyars with the Bulgarians, and in doing so emphasises that the customs of the Magyars differed from those of the Bulgarians only in so far as the latter had embraced the Christian religion and, adapting themselves to Byzantine morals, had abandoned both their savage and nomadic characteristics and their paganism. By this he alludes to the fact, on the one hand, that the Bulgarian prince Boris and his people had become Christians as early as 864, which means that they had merged in the community of Christian peoples, and to the negative fact, on the other hand, that the Magyars, whom he had come to know during the war in 894-95 but who, at the time of his work was written (between 904-912), were already living in their present country, had not as yet been converted.

From the time of Marco Polo to that of Vasco da Gama, no great eastern voyage, of which we possess a full record, has received less attention here than the gallant Athanasius Nikitin's journey from Russia “across three seas” to Persia, India, and back. Indeed, in not a single book on Russia, written in English, that the present writer has seen, was a mention, let alone a description, of Nikitin's voyage to be found. This is all the more regrettable, as a translation of his report has actually been published in English, in volume XXII of the Works issued by the Hakluyt Society (R. H. Major, editor; London, 1857). However, this translation is almost one hundred years old, and does not live up to the minimum requirements of up to date scholarship.

A few years before the last World War, an event of outstanding interest took place in the literary circles of Paris. This was the publication of part of Turgenev's posthumous works. For half a century these had remained hidden in the family of the famous French opera star Pauline Viardot. Among other valuable items, they contained one of Turgenev's most inspired pages—his farewell greeting to the beloved woman, full of tender love and passion, which he wrote before his death and which she was to read after her friend should be no more. This pathetic greeting recalls the almost forgotten story of Turgenev's tragic love for Pauline Viardot, developing from selfish passion to supreme sacrifice and closing with the pathetic message from the dead.

In my study on Pushkin, “Poetry of Marriage and the Hearth,” I attempted to show that certain motives in the many-sided, yet pre-eminently lyric and autobiographic poetry of Pushkin express, indeed ground and affirm, the poet's view of absolute truths and the laws which derive from these truths and, in the poet's opinion, govern man's life inexorably, beyond possibility of any compromise. One such law which in the poetic (and, although of less importance, also in the practical) concepts of Pushkin had just such a religious, imperative significance, admitting of no modification and no reduction, was the principle of the inviolability of marriage.

In the 1880's, France “discovered” Russian literature. In this period appeared a large number of translations from Russian writers, and numerous articles about Russian authors were published in various magazines and reviews. In the mid-1880's, two books came out whose purpose was to familiarize the French reader with the masters of Russian literature. Ernest Dupuy's Les Grands Maîtres de la Littérature Russe du 19me siecle was published in 1885. Dupuy gives no more than a resumé of biographical facts concerning Gogol, Turgenev and Tolstoi, with a brief summary of some of their novels. Although the book is titled “The Great Masters of Russian Literature in the 19th Century,” Dostoyevski is not even mentioned. Dupuy's book was nevertheless reprinted several times.

The star of Vladimir Mayakovski is today in its zenith. Has he not recorded, outdistancing in pointedness, dynamism and intensity any Soviet bard, every phase of the gigantic transition from Tsarist defeatism to intoxication with power? His stock-theme, namely, man reclaiming the earth from its self-imposed lords, he has bedizened with an unmatched breath of registers from literacy, birth-control, coal, radio, tractors and aircraft down to manners, cleanliness, diet and dress.

The village of Prąadnik, on the River Nida, a left-bank tributary of the Vistula not far from Kraków, has been called “The Polish Urbino,” as it was here that Lukasz Górnicki (1572-1603) placed the scene of his Dworzanin, a work based on Castiglione' celebrated handbook of manners, The Courtier, the scene of which was, of course, the Italian Urbino.

The sparrow's song within the thor
Our Lord doth welcome, newly born.
The titmouse twitters tsin-tsin-tsin,
For mankind redeemed from sin.
Triumphant is the magpie's cry
That the fiend of hell must die.
The lonely owl's oo-oo-oo
Sings the Saviour's praises too.
For our simple rhyme and verse,
A penny each, Sir, from your purse.
May God your kindness, Sir, repay,
His Grace hell-fires keep away.

For the people in Lithuania, Christmas is not just one day, it is a succession of three days of festivity in which, however, Christmas Eve stands out as the most significant part.

Although Lithuania is not very large in area, we find numerous variations of customs and superstitions connected with Christmas Eve. What is said of one place, may not be true of another one. Various sources have contributed to the treasure of Lithuanian folklore and, since those forces have not been equally spread over the country, we find a great variety of popular beliefs and superstitious practices. About ninety-two percent of the population of Lithuania are Christians, the rest being mostly of the Hebrew faith. Of the Christian population of Lithuania, ninety-seven percent celebrate Christmas Eve at the same time as we do.

There are writers who take the reader into a strange world as Alice was taken into Wonderland when she stepped through the Looking-Glass. Aron Tamasi,the Transylvanian, is such a writer. He knows the wants of simple folk, he is concerned with their dreams, he is a friend of those who have suffered injustice, and he also knows them when they are in search of happiness. His art is a half-oriental tapestry of pure faith, magic and sorcery; a hint of urbane things, of characteristics which are in line with folklore. In all his stories, novels and plays, he upholds the rights of man. He maintains that “we are born to this globe entitled to find shelter on it.”

Much praise has been bestowed by many a writer on the rôle played in the past by Tartu University as a seat of learning and a center of civilizing importance for North-Eastern Europe. Tartu, which the Germans called Dorpat and the Russians baptized Yuryev, has often been allotted a special place in the story of Baltic-German rise and fall. Yet on closer investigation it appears that almost nothing has been said so far about the influence exercised by Tartu on its immediate neighborhood, on the Estonians themselves on whose soil this University town flourished. German writers dwelt on Tartu as their Dorpat, their very own center of German scholarship, and described the contribution made by Tartu research to both the German and the Russian sphere.