Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/149

Rh the last head Widespread was the inﬂuence of Haxthausen, who visited Russia in 1843 to examine the Russian mir and Russian economic conditions in general. Apart from their theoretical studies, it was inevitable that Russian students in Germany should be influenced by German philosophy and literature and by the political tendencies dominant in academic and cultured society. The philosophy of Kant and of Fichte had little direct inflluence in Russia, but the influence of Schelling and of Hegel was extensive. It was especially owing to the thoroughness of its theory of cognition, to its moral earnestness, and to its bearings upon ethics and practical conduct, that German philosophy owed its power in Russia. Schnelling's aesthetics played a part in the development of Russian literary criticism; and Schelling and Hegel, with their philosophy of history, did much to promote the foundation of Russian philosophy of history.

Especially notable was the success in Russia of the Hegelian left and, as we shall see, of Feuerbach.

German poets, too, had far-reaching influence. The writings of Lessing, Schiller, Goethe, and those also of E. T. A. Hoffmann and others, in conjunction with the writings of the German philosophers, positively revolutionised Young Russia. As Turgenev phrased it, the intelligentsia plunged out of its depth into the "German sea" of philosophy; and he shrewdly characterised the practical needs of Young Russia with the words: "In philosophy at that time we sought everything in the world except lucid thought."

In the circle of the Moscow Schellingites Odoevskii and his associates founded in the year 1824 "Mnemozyna," the first Russian philosophical periodical, which came to an untimely end owing to the decabrist rising.

The Hegelian left influenced progressive Russians in the direction of new France. Apart from this, intimate relationships with France had still continued, and widespread knowledge of the French tongue facilitated the influence of French philosophy and literature. The effect of French socialism was powerful. Saltykov gives the following account of French influence in Russia towards the close of the forties (1846–1847): "From France, not of course from the France of Louis Philippe and Guizot, but from the France of Saint-Simon, Cabot, Fourier, Louis Blanc, and above all George Sand, we derived a faith in humanity; France irradiated to us the