What halted them was the complete contradiction of the words they were taught with the facts of life around them. Their teachers, their books, their university spoke one language and tha t language was intelligible to heart and mind. Their father and mother, their relations, and their whole environment spoke another with which neither mind nor heart was in agreementbut with which th<> dominant authorities and financial interests were in accord. This contradiction between education and custom nowhere reachPd such dimensions as among the nobility and gen try of Russia . The shaggy German student with his round
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cap covering a seventh part of his head, with his world-shaking pranks, is far nearer to the German Spiessburger than is supposed, and the French collegien, lank from vanity and emulation, is already en herbe l'homme raisonnable qui exploite sa position.
The number of educated people amongst us has always been extremely small; but those who were educated have always received an education, not perhaps very comprehensive, but fairly general and humane: it made men of all with whom it succeeded. But a man was just what was not wanted either for the hierarchical pyramid or for the successful maintenance of the landowning regime. The young man had either to dehumanise himself again-and the greater number did SO---{)r to stop short and ask himself: 'But is it absolutely essential to go into the service? Is i t really a good thing to be a landowner?'
After that there followed for some, the weaker and more impatient, the idle existence of a cornet on the retired list, the sloth of the country, the dressing-gown, eccentricities, cards, wine; for others a time of ordeal and inner travail. They could not live in complete moral disharmony, nor could they be satisfied with a negative attitude of withdrawal ; the stimulated mind required an outlet. The various solutions of these questions, all equally harassing for the younger genera tion, determined their distribution into various circles.
Thus our coterie. for instance, was formed, and at the university it met Snngurov's, already in existence. His, like ours, was concerned rather with politics than \Vith learning. Stankevich's circle, which came into being at the same time, was equally near both and equally remote· from both. He went by another path: his interests were purely theoretical .
Between 1 830 and 1 840 our convictions were too youthful, too ardent and passionate, not to be exclusive. vVe could feel a cold respect for Stankevich's circle, but we could not be intimate with its members. They traced philosophical systems, were absorbed in self-analysis, and found peace in a luxurious pantheism from which Christianity was not excluded. vVe were dreaming how to get up a new league in Russia on the pattern of the Decembrists and looked upon learning i tself as a means to our end. The government did its best to strengthen us in our revolutionary tendencies.
In 1 833 all Sungurov's circle was sent into exile andvanished.
In 1 835 we were exiled. Five years later we came back,
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tempered by our experience. The dreams of youth had become the irreversible determination of maturity. This was the most brilliant period of Stankevich's circle. Stankevich himself I did not find in Moscow-he was in Germany; but it was just a t that moment that Belinsky's articles were beginning to attract the attention of everyone.
On our return we measured our strength with them. The battle was an unequal one ; basis, weapons, and language-all were different. After fruitless skirmishes we saw that it was our turn now to undertake serious study and we too set to work upon Hegel and the German philosophy. When we had sufficiently assimilated that, it became evident that there was no ground for dispute between us and Stankevich's circle.
The latter was inevitably bound to break up. It had done its work, and had done it most brilliantly; its influence on the whole of literature and academic teaching was immense-it is enough to mention the names of Belinsky and Granovsky; Koltsov was formed in it, Botkin, Katkov, and others belonged to it. But it could not remain a closed circle without passing into German doctrinairism-men who are alive and are Russian are not capable of that.
Close to Stankcvich's circle, as well as ours, there was another, formed during our exile and in the same relationship to them as we were ; its members were afterwards called Slavophils. The Slavs approached from the opposite direction the vital questions which occupied us, and were far more deeply immersed in living work and real conflict than Stankevich's circle.
It was natural that Stankevich's society should split up between them and us. The Aksakovs and Samarin joined the Slavophils, that is, Khomvakov and the Kireyevskvs. Belinsky and Bakunin joined us. The closest friend of Stankevich, the most nearly akin to him in his whole nature, Granovsky, was one of us from the day he came back from Germany.
If Stankevich had lived, his circle would still have broken up.
He would himself have gone over to Khomyakov or to us.
By 1 842 the sifting in accordance with natural affinity had long been complete, and our camp stood in battle array face to face with the Slavophils. Of that conflict we shall speak in another place. 16
In conclusion I shall add a few words about the clements of which Stankevich's circle was composed; this will throw a light of its own on the strange underground currents which were 16 Sec "Our 'Opponents,' " pp. 287-305. (D.M.)
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silently undermining the compact crust of the Russo-German regime.
Stankevich was the son of a v\·ealthy landowner of the province of Voronezh, and was at first brought up in all the ease and freedom of a landowner's life in the country; then he was sent to the school at Ostrogozhsk (and that was something quite out of the way) . For fine natures a wealthy and even aristocratic education is very good. A sufficiency gives unfettPred freedom and space Jor growth and development of every sort; it does not constrict the young mind with premature anxiety and apprehension of the future, and it provides complete freedom to pursue the subjects to which it is drawn.
Stankevich's development was broad and harmonious; his artistic, musical, and at the same time reflective and contemplative nature showed itself from the very beginning of his university career. His special faculty, not only for deeply and warmly understanding, but also for reconciling, or as the Germans say
'removing' contradictions, was based on his artistic temperament. The need for harmony, proportion and enjoyment makes such people indulgent as to the means; to avoid seeing the well, they cover it over with canvas. The canvas will not stand a push, but the eye is not bothered by a yawning gulf. In this way the Germans attained to pantheistic quietism and rested upon it; but such a gifted Russian as Stankevich could not remain 'at peace'