Schelling's philosophy also suggested new views as to the theory of art and the significance of literature in the life of a nation, and evolved the conclusion, that a nation's literature, even more than its civilization, should be entirely independent. This naturally led the Slavyanophils to reflect upon the indispensability of establishing Russian literature on a thoroughly national, independent basis. Naturally, also, this led to the Slavyanophils contesting the existence of a Russian literature in the proper sense of the term; since the whole of it, from Lomonósoff to Púshkin, had been merely a servile imitation of Western literature, and did not in the least express the spirit of the Russian people, and of the Schellingists. A number of the professors in the Moscow University belonged to this party. Naturally the students in their department—the philological faculty—came under their influence, and under this influence was reared the famous Russian critic, Vissarión Grigórievitch Byelínsky (1811-1848). His name is chiefly identified with the journal "The Annals of the Fatherland" (of St. Petersburg), where he published his brilliant critical articles on Griboyédoff, Gógol's "The Inspector," on Lérmontoff's works, and on those of other writers; on French contemporary literature, and on current topics at home and abroad, among them articles condemning many characteristics of Russian society, both intellectual and moral, such as the absence of intellectual interests, routine, narrowness, and egotism in the middle-class merchants; self-satisfied philistinism; the patriarchal laxity of provincial morals; the lack of humanity and the Asiatic ferocity towards inferiors; the slavery of women and children under the weight of family despotism. His volume of articles on Púshkin constitutes a complete critical history of Russian literature, beginning with Lomonósoff and ending with Púshkin. By these Byelínsky's standing as an important factor in literature was thoroughly established, and all the young writers of the succeeding epoch, that of the '50's, gathered around him. Grigoróvitch, Turgéneff, Gontcharóff, Nekrásoff, Apollón Máikoff, Dostoévsky, Tolstóy, and the rest, may be said to have been reared on Byelínsky's criticism, inspired by it to creative activity, and indebted to it for much of their fame. Byelínsky, moreover, educated the minds of that whole generation, and prepared men for the social movement of the '60's, which was characterized by many reforms.
After 1846 Byelínsky was connected with the journal, "The Contemporary," published by the poet Nekrásoff, and I. I. Panáeff, to which the best writers of the day contributed. Here, during the brief period when his health permitted him to work, he expressed even bolder and more practical ideas, and became the advocate of the "natural school," of which he regarded Gógol as the founder, wherein poetry was treated as an integral part of every-day life. Turgéneff has declared, that Byelínsky indisputably possessed all the chief qualities of a great critic, and that no one before him, or better than he, ever expressed a correct judgment and an authoritative verdict, and that he was, emphatically, "the right man in the right place."
One author who deserves to be better known outside of Russia produced the really original and indescribably fascinating works on which his fame rests during the last ten or twelve years of his long life, late in the '40's and '50's, although he was much older than the authors we have recently studied, and began to write much earlier than many of them. His early writing, however, was in the classical style, and does not count in comparison with his original descriptions of nature, and of the life of the (comparatively) distant past. Sergyéi Timoféevitch Aksákoff (1791-1859), the descendant of a very ancient noble family, was born in far-away eastern Russia, in Ufá, and was very well educated by his mother, at schools, and at Kazán University. His talents first revealed themselves in 1847, in his "Notes on Angling," and his "Diary of a Sportsman with a Gun," in the Orenburg Government (1852). Most famous of all, and most delightful, are the companion volumes, "A Family Chronicle and Souvenirs" (1856) and "The Childhood's Years of Bagróff's Grandson" (1858). In these Russian descriptive language made a great stride in advance, even after Púshkin and Gógol; and as a limner of landscape, he has no equal in Russian literature. The most noteworthy point about his work is that there is not a trace of creative fancy or invention; he describes reality, takes everything straight from life, and describes it with amazing faithfulness and artistic harmony. He was the first Russian writer to look on Russian life from a positive instead of from a negative point of view.[19]
Púshkin's period had been important, not only in rendering Russian literature national, but still more so in bringing literature into close connection with life and its interests. This had in turn led to a love of reading and of literature all over the country, and had developed latent talents. This love spread to classes hitherto unaffected by it; and among the talents it thus developed, none was more thoroughly independent than that of Alexéi Vasílievitch Koltzóff (1809-1842), who was so original, so wholly unique in his genius, that he cannot rightly be assigned to any class, and still stands as an isolated phenomenon. He was the son of a merchant of Vorónezh, who was possessed of considerable means, and he spent the greater part of his youth on the steppes, helping his father, a drover, who supplied tallow-factories. After being taught to read and write by a theological student, young Koltzóff was sent to the district school for four months, after which his education was regarded as finished, because he knew as much as the people about him, and because no more was required for business purposes. But the lad acquired a strong love of reading, and devoted himself to such literature as he could procure, popular fairy-tales, the "Thousand and One Nights," and so forth. He was sixteen years of age when Dmítrieff's works fell into his hands, and inspired him with a desire to imitate them, and to "make songs" himself. As yet he did not understand the difference between poetry and popular songs, and did not read verses, but sang them. The local book-seller was the first to recognize his poetical tendency, and in a degree, guided him on the right road with a "Russian Prosody," and other suitable books, such as the works of Zhukóvsky, Púshkin, and other contemporary poets. A passion for writing poetry was in the air in the '20's. But although he yielded to this and to the promptings of his genius, it was a long time before he was able to clothe his thoughts in tolerable form. An unhappy love had a powerful influence on the development of his poetical talent, and his versified efforts suddenly became fervent songs of love and hate, of melancholy, soulful cries of grief and woe, full of melodious expressions of the world about him. One of Byelínsky's friends, whose family lived near Vorónezh, made his acquaintance, read his poems and applauded much in them. Three years later, in 1833, at the request and expense of this new friend, Koltzóff published a small collection, containing eighteen poems selected by him, which showed that he possessed an original and really noteworthy poetical gift. In 1835 Koltzóff visited St. Petersburg and made acquaintance with Púshkin, Zhukóvsky, and many other literary men, and between 1836 and 1838 his fame penetrated even to the knowledge of the citizens in his native town. He continued to aid his father in business, but his heart was elsewhere—he longed for the intellectual companionship of his friends in Moscow, and all this rendered him extremely unhappy. In 1840 he spent three months with Byelínsky in St. Petersburg, and after that he remained in Vorónezh, had another unhappy love affair, and dreamed continually of the possibility of quitting the place for good. But his father would not give him a kopék for such a purpose. His health gave way, and he died in 1842, aged thirty-three.
His poems are few in number, and the best of them belong to an entirely peculiar style, which he alone in Russian literature possesses, to which he alone imparted significance—the ballad, the national ballad compact, powerful, rich in expression, and highly artistic. The charm of nationality is so great, as expressed in Koltzóff's songs, that it is almost impossible to read them; one wants to sing them as the author sang the verses of others in his boyhood. Even his peculiar measures, which are not at all adapted to popular songs, do not destroy the harmonious impression made by them, and such pieces as "The Forest," "The Ballads of Cabman Kudryávitch," "The Perfidy of the Affianced Bride," and others, not only belong to the most notable productions of Russian lyric poetry, but are also representatives of an important historical phenomenon, as the first attempt to combine in one organic whole Russian artistic literature and the inexhaustible vast inartistic poetry of the people. "The Perfidy of the Affianced Bride," which is not rhymed in the original, runs as follows:
Hot in heaven the summer sun doth shine,
But me, young though I be, it warmeth not!
My heart is dead with cold
Through the perfidy of my affianced bride.
Woe-sadness upon me hath fallen,
Upon my sorrowful head;
My soul by deadly anguish is tormented,
And from my body my soul doth long to flee.
Unto men have I resorted for help—
With a laugh have they turned away;
To the grave of my father, my mother—
But they rise not at my call.
The world grew dark before mine eyes,
Upon the grass I swooned.
At dead of night, in a dreadful storm,
They lifted me from the grave.
At night, in the storm, I saddled my steed;
I set out, caring not whither I went—
To lead a wretched life, to console myself,
With rancor to demand satisfaction from men.