Down to the present day, Russian literature contrasts with that of the west by the way in which it abounds in self-tutored men. Nor was it by chance that such men were conspicuous during the epoch of the Alexandrine and Nicolaitan reaction—men like Polevoi and Bělinskii, the last-named being the writer to develop literary criticism into a weapon of opposition and revolution.
From the opening of the movement, the propaganda of progressive ideas was a leading aim of journalistic and critical literature, reviews coming to exercise great influence side by side with newspapers, and the leading aim of this literature being to popularise philosophy and new ideas.
Pari passu with the increase in reaction, the democratic literary opposition evolved into a revolutionary movement. Clandestine literature came into existence both at home and abroad. Works were circulated in manuscript, thousands of copies being made of Griboedov's comedies, for example, before Nicholas allowed them to be printed. Subsequently, secret presses were installed at home, and printing and publishing establishments came into existence abroad, the first of these being the Russian printing house founded in London by Herzen in the year 1853. Prohibited foreign works and Russian writings printed abroad were by an organised system clandestinely imported into Russia.
In this connection a word may be said concerning the suggestive method employed in the literature of opposition. In the earlier newspapers of Russia and in the novels and other books of that day we must read much between the lines. Veiled incitations are ofttimes more effective than plain language. Absolutism is not merely brutal, but stupid as well. Moreover, alike in St. Petersburg and Moscow reactionary journalism and literature were in every respect inferior to the literature and journalism of the progressives.
A movement of emigration was associated with the growth of clandestine literature. Emigration must be regarded as a permanent Russian institution. In Old Russia, during the days of the petty princes, we should speak rather of the persistence of a nomadic tendency; but in the realm of Muscovy the political character of the movement had already become
quite à la Nicholas in the sentencing of the accused, some to quartering, some to hanging, and some to shooting, the punishments being then commuted to imprisonment.
