Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/46

20 pupil and of their joint work on behalf of their literary organ and its supporters. The account will further be of interest because it will serve admirably to complete our knowledge of the teacher's own trend of thought. Since Dobroljubov was exclusively a critic, he was typical of the new realistic tendency especially from this aspect.

Dobroljubov's activities were not of long duration, but they gave a rich yield. He was animated with ah enthusiastic and inspiring love for intellectual liberty, and he fought to introduce the light into the Old Russian "realm of darkness" (his analysis of Ostrovskii's dramas depicting the mercantile classes). Writing of Gončarov's Oblomov, he described Oblomovism as the issue of this darkness and as characteristic of the Russians in general; but the errors, he said, were those of one already struggling towards the light. Oblomov was the representative of the liberal nobles, inactive but longing for activity, "superfluous persons." The effect of Dobroljubov's essays was all the greater because he had a closer and more realistic knowledge of Russian conditions than was possessed by his friend and teacher and because, too, he had in the highest degree the gift of satire.

Dobroljubov turned away from the "phantasmagorias of the orientalist imagination"; he turned to Bělinskii (of the last phase) and to Herzen; in this way, like Černyševskii and his radical contemporaries in general, he came to Feuerbach and the Hegelian left. He now adopted the political views of Černyševskii, and in the latter's review secured a free platform for the expression of his ideas. To Černyševskii we owe a biography of his young friend and disciple, who, in turn, exercised considerable influence upon the teacher.

As materialist and utilitarian, Dobroljubov could not fail to ask himself the question whether there was any justification