afraid of "jacobinism," and because Gogol had been able to torment and starve himself back into Orthodoxy.[1]
§ 19.
UNDER Alexander and Nicholas, Russian national consciousness continually expanded, increasing finally to a highly developed chauvinism, of which Uvarov's program was the expression.
The development of Russian national consciousness dates back to the eighteenth century. In opposition to the reforms of Peter, and in opposition to the favouring of foreigners characteristic of the court, Russian peculiarities were defended against foreign influences by historians and other writers, by Tredjakovskii, Lomonosov, .Sumarokov, L'vov, Lukin, Ščerbatov, and Boltin. There was a natural reaction against the extravagances of Gallomania, and antifrench feeling was accentuated in the struggles against the French republic and the Napoleonic empire. The Frenchified Russian aristocracy became alienated from the regicides. and Russian authors lost the taste for French literature and philosophy. The strengthening of national feeling in Russia was analogous to what was taking place in Germany, the movement being intensified in both countries by linguistic changes, by the purification of the native tongue. In Russia, as in Germany, there was a reaction against French supremacy.
For the Russians the problem of the written language was one of peculiar importance. Only through the reforms
- ↑ Readers who desire to gain a more detailed picture of Russian civilization during the reign of Nicholas, must refer to the official journals of the period and to those that were officially permitted. I must content myself here with a reference to "Majak" (The Lighthouse). which championed Uvarov's ideas from 1840 to 1850. The editor. General Buraček, mathematician and designer of ships, wished to favour an education that should promote the spirit of Russian nationalism; western ideas were to be resisted or corrected, for European notions conflicted with the gospels. In his view, the west was a prey to Roman heathenism, and from this antichristian spirit had sprung revolutions, freethought, the reformation, and the papacy. The kingdom of God, the realm of the easterns, would rise gloriously upon the ruins of the western world. In conformity with this spirit, the periodical published contributions from gardeners and other simple men of the people. who displayed their genuinely Russian "mind-intelligence" (um-razum) in stories of apparitions and the like. The newer Russian literature was practically united in its condemnation of this organ of pure Russian patriotism. Puškin as well as Lermontov, and, it need hardly be said, Bělinskii, were opposed to it. But a few authors such as Zagoskin, were delighted with "Majak."
