CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE SYNTHESIS OF WESTERNISM AND SLAVOPHILISM.APOLLON GRIGOR'EV.
§ 77.
PECULIAR interest attaches to Apollon Aleksandrovič Grigor'ev the critic. His first literary works were produced in the middle of the forties. By the close of the fifties his leading views had already been elaborated. Shortly after 1860 he gave a comprehensive exposition of these, writing now chiefly in the two reviews edited by the brothers Dostoevskii.[1]
Grigor'ev is frequently classed among the "younger" slavophils, but some prefer to consider him a conservative. His outlook was really a modification of slavophilism, and at the same time he attempted a synthesis of slavophil and westernist views.
Dostoevskii spoke of Grigor'ev and his supporters as počvenniki. The root of this world is počva, signifying soil, ground. foundation. The počvenniki were considered to be established upon the solid basis of the Russian folk, but the double significance of the term počva is reflected in the philosophical foundations of the počvenniks' programme.
By 1861 the contrast between the slavophils and the westernisers had in Grigor'ev's view been transcended. The distinct trends no longer existed, or at any rate lacked justification for existence, now that Puškin had succeeded in effecting the organic synthesis of the two cultural elements. Art, said Grigor'ev, is the instrument of nationality, of the national spirit, whilst the nation is the instrument of mankind,
- ↑ Grigor'ev was born in Moscow in the year 1822, and left Moscow university in 1842. In the southern capital he was exposed to the same influences as his westernist and slavophil friends and contemporaries. He died in 1864.
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