ABSTRACT
The travellers and reporters have had their place with the translators and the literary critics, and the Russian influence on English literature has been implied or indicated rather than analysed. Freer, less imitative handling of Russian subject-matter has given the reader far more interesting literature. The Russian influence did its part in shaping one of Shaw's best plays. He plays variations in the English manner on a Russian theme. Among fantasies on Russian themes should be included George Orwell's much admired Animal Farm, a brilliant political satire, directed, it seems to be agreed, against Stalin and his commissars. The Russian influence was working upon her, as upon other European novelists, in the direction of breaking up the old moulds. 'Modern Southern writing seems most indebted to Russian literature, to be the progeny of the Russian realists,' wrote the Southern novelist, Carson McCullers, some years ago.
