the interpretation of Bělinskii is difficult, and divergent opinions are possible. Moreover, about persons his views were liable to frequent and rapid changes.[1]
Some biographers and literary historians distinguish three periods in Bělinskii's development. The first, extending to the year 1840, was that in which he was engaged in the recognition of reality, with Hegel's assistance. From 1840 to 1847 he was devoted to the struggle for western culture and social institutions. In 1847 occurred a sort of slavophil conversion, leading to a campaign on behalf of nationality.
This classification is extremely superficial. As regards the third period, it is obvious that a recognition of the importance of nationality is not peculiar to slavophilism. We need only recall that in 1847 appeared the writing directed against Gogol, a convert to Orthodoxy, for this will suffice to convince us that Bělinskii was no slavophil. Besides, in this very year 1847 Bělinskii expressed himself very energetically and in extremely definite terms as opposed to the slavophil doctrine of the mir and the artel. If in 1847 (it was really in 1846) Bělinskii experienced a new crisis, it was of a different kind, for at this epoch he became somewhat unsympathetic towards socialism.
Agreement with the slavophils in certain respects is characteristic rather of the first of the alleged phases. At the university Bělinskii, having been made acquainted by Pavlov with the work of Schelling, passed under romanticist influences, but simultaneously Nadeždin drew his attention to the pitfalls of romanticism, and his youthful drama is permeated by this cleavage of views. Through renewed acquaintanceship with Schelling and German philosophy in Stankevič's circle he came in certain important respects to share the opinions of the slavophils, and employed some of the expressions which the slavophils had made current. He spoke of the importance of the "inner" life as contrasted with the "outer"; he condemned the French for the way in which their understanding tended to lapse into criticism (making use of the word razsudok); he considered that will was the essence of the mind—and we have seen that all these views were characteristic of the slavophils. At this period for Bělinskii eternity was, as he puts it,
- ↑ For example, in 1839, Bělinskii produced an appreciative judgment of his teacher and literary patron Nadeždin, both in respect of authorship and of personal character. But a year later he condemned Nadeždin's character in strong terms.
