Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/43

Rh of all three. But why need this be so? The conflict terminates in a union à trois, and hell is transmuted into paradise. The "triple" now goes to Europe, and in England the unconventional relationship leads to a prosecution, but the jury acquits the accused after a brilliant speech from the wife. In America they are received with open arms.

FTER the death of Bělinskii, Russian literature and criticism in St. Petersburg and Moscow were under the dominion of the police-aesthetics inaugurated by Nicholas' henchmen, who had been quite thrown off their balance by the revolution of 1848. Družinin and Annenkov, with their philosophy of moderation, their liberalism in politics, and their system of aesthetics which was tantamount to the advocacy of art for art's sake and desired to immerse itself in memories of the days before Puškin, had little influence on the rising generation, on the young people who had read Herzen. Annenkov had much that was informative and interesting to bring back from Europe. Družinin made a name for himself with the publication of his novel Polin'ka Saks (1847). His critical and literary essays were instructive, while his studies in English literature and his translations from the English tongue were of value as a supplement to the French and German trends; but Nicolaitan Russia, faced by the catastrophe of Sevastopol, looked for other pabulum than was provided by articles on Samuel Johnson and by the polemics waged by the English tories in the name of aesthetics against "the didactics," that is to say against writers on social topics and writers with a purpose.

Černyševskii's criticism satisfied the philosophical and political needs of his day. As we have learned, he made his literary debut in 1853, and shortly afterwards he took the field as champion of Bělinskii and continuer of that author's work. He secured general recognition for the forbidden name of Bělinskii (Sketches dealing with the Period of Gogol, 1855); and in his thesis for the degree of master of arts, The Aesthetic Relationship of Art to Reality (1855), he applied Feuerbachian principles to aesthetics.

Černyševskii feels the lack of beauty in life, in reality. He demands that art shall not merely represent life, but shall Rh