Page:The Russian Review Volume 1.djvu/30

16 Before taking up the writings of this era (which will be done in the next article), we must consider how the change came about.

A Russian critic has described the psychology of his people as an "agricultural" one, that of "the man who walks behind the plow." The exclusive social structure for the first half of the century was that of the landowner and the peasant,—on the one hand, a great, leisurely, patriarchal class,—on the other, the serfs, the masses, "the mysterious strangers in literature toward whom all were striving and whom none understood." Many Russians who sought to isolate what was distinctively Russian in the social system, found in the agrarian community the real unit of the social structure. These men felt that the true germ of Russian society was the "agricultural" or "rural" commune,—and that the hope of Russia lay, not in the civilization and arts of the West, but in the purification and strengthening of the rural communities. To accomplish this, it was first of all necessary to abolish serfdom, and so there was unfurled the banner of the "Peasant,"—not by the peasant, but by members of the nobility, in his name. And a period of vicarious salvation of the masses set in.

This movement for the reforming of the "rural" communities had far-reaching effects. To begin with, it divided the thinking men of Russia into two opposing factions, which, like all opposing forces, merged into each other at many points. The two rival camps were the Slavophiles and the Westernizers. The desire to westernize Russia was not a new one, and its main aims need no comment. The leaders of this faction accepted, as their philosophic basis, the negative side of Hegel's teachings,—especially his denial of traditional religion and his idea of constant development and change in Nature.

As it happened, the Slavophiles, though they strove to be purely Russian, followed the Westernizers in basing their views upon Hegel. They adapted, for home consumption, perhaps the central idea of the philosopher's views on history. It was the doctrine of a super-race and a super-nation, a glorification of nationalism, and it apealed strongly to the defenders of the Slavic idea. Hegel taught a new metamorphosis in man's conception of the divinity: the Supreme Reason. This Supreme Reason was something integral, unitary, and endowed with one almighty passion: to know himself. The spirit of Super-Reason led a wandering life, and when it lived with a people, that people was a living one. Chaldea, Babylon, China, India,—each had, at