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NAPOLEONDER
From the Russian
THE NAPOLEON OF THE PEOPLE
From the French of Honoré de Balzac
Translated With Introduction By
GEORGE KENNAN
1902
Most of the literature that has its origin in the life and career of agreat man may be grouped and classified under two heads: history andbiography. The part that relates to the man's actions, and to theinfluence that such actions have had in shaping the destinies of peoplesand states, belongs in the one class; while the part that derives itsinterest mainly from the man's personality, and deals chiefly with themental and moral characteristics of which his actions were the outcome,goes properly into the other. The value of the literature included inthese two classes depends almost wholly upon truth; that is, upon theprecise correspondence of the statements made with the real facts of theman's life and career. History is worse than useless if it does notaccurately chronicle and describe events; and biography is valueless andmisleading if it does not truly set forth individual character.
There is, however, a kind of great-man literature in which truth iscomparatively unimportant, and that is the literature of popular legendand tradition. Whether it purports to be historical or biographical, orboth, it derives its interest and value from the light that it throwsupon the temperament and character of the people who originate it,rather than from the amount of truth contained in the statements thatit makes about the man.
The folk-tales of Napoleon Bonaparte herewith presented, if judged fromthe viewpoint of the historian or the biographer, are absurdly andgrotesquely untrue; but to the anthropologist and the student of humannature they are extremely valuable as self-revelations of nationalcharacter; and even to the historian and the biographer they have someinterest as evidences of the profoundly deep impression made byNapoleon's personality upon two great peoples—the Russians and theFrench.
The first story, which is entitled "Napoleonder," is of Russian origin,and was put into literary form, or edited, by Alexander Amphiteatrof ofSt. Petersburg. It originally appeared as a feuilleton in the St.Petersburg "Gazette" of December 13, 1901. As a characteristic specimenof Russian peasant folk-lore, it seems to me to have more than ordinaryinterest and value. The treatment of the supernatural may seem, toOccidental readers, rather daring and irreverent, but it is perfectly inharmony with the Russian peasant's anthropomorphic conception of Deity,and should be taken with due allowance for the educational limitationsof the story-teller and his auditors. The Russian muzhik often bringsGod and the angels into his folk-tales, and does so without the leastidea of treating them disrespectfully. He makes them talk in his ownlanguage because he has no other language; and if the talk seems alittle grotesque and irreverent, it is due to the low level of thenarrator's literary culture, and not to any intention, on his part, oftreating God and the angels with levity. The whole aim of the story is amoral and religious one. The narrator is trying to show that sympathyand mercy are better than selfish ambition, and that war is not onlyimmoral but irrational. The conversation between God, the angels, andthe Devil is a mere p