The Russian realists helped create the intellectual conditions that directed Russia’s mid-nineteenth century reform movements. Their accurate descriptions of both Russian society and the potential cruelty of human existence filled a generation of social activists with a deep sense of their moral responsibility to work for social, political, and economic equality.
Mid-nineteenth century Russia witnessed an artistic and literary movement that embraced realism in representation. The members of the Russian intelligentsia who adhered to this approach were the products of a half-century of cultural, political, and social upheaval that shook the very foundation of the Russian nation. At the beginning of the century, Czar Alexander I had flirted with the Enlightenment ideal of liberalism as expressed in the political concepts of constitutional monarchy and the abolition of serfdom. Many of the bright and talented young members of his officer corps believed the adoption of the Enlightenment worldview was the best way to initiate the reforms necessary to modernize Russian society. However, the French Revolution (1789)
After Czar Alexander
The foundation of all of Russian society according to Nicholas rested upon the ideas of orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationalism. The Russian Orthodox Church would form the moral compass of the entire nation, and its strict ethical code was to be reinforced in the curriculum of the Russian educational system, as well as in the art produced by the nation’s intellectual and artistic community. Government censorship
The czar’s word was law, and any attempt to question the status quo was considered an act of treason. The concept of nationalism was used to create an ethnocentric mind-set that viewed Russian culture as superior to all others, especially to that of Enlightenment-dominated western Europe. This theory of Russian cultural superiority would in time become the intellectual foundation of the Slavophile movement, which was to play a prominent role in much of the art of the Russian realists.
The major international event that helped shape the worldview of the Russian realists was the Crimean War (1853-1856)
The Russian realists’ major goal was to create the intellectual conditions for reform. They believed they could do this by creating works of art, most significantly literature, that reflected every aspect of the human condition. They not only discussed the eternal personal struggle between good and evil but also described how individual moral choices could affect other members of society. They attempted to create a social conscience that would protect and respect the weakest members of Russian society.
These writers believed deeply that every individual had an inalienable dignity that transcended class or any other social distinction. The realists also delved deeply into everyday life and tried to discover the sources of human happiness and despair. They described how the choice of lifestyle could either liberate a person and allow that individual to create a positive legacy or imprison the person in the trap of never-ending self-indulgence.
The realists also stressed the importance of action and the strength of will required to take uncomfortable or dangerous positions against both authority and one’s own class. The need for such strength was often demonstrated by realist portrayals of its antithesis in the figure of the “superfluous man.” Such a character’s moral weakness or lack of personal courage prevented him from engaging in actions that were socially beneficial but personally dangerous or painful. Indeed, many of Russian realist Ivan Turgenev’s
By the late 1840’s, the realists were beginning to divide into two philosophical camps over the question of the importance of Western scientific liberalism. The Westerners were the Russian intellectuals who believed that Russian civilization was a significant part of the European cultural tradition. They believed that Russia’s intellectual development had been damaged and delayed, first by the Byzantine Empire, which had isolated the nation from the advances of the High Middle Ages, then by the Mongols, who had blocked Russian exposure to the secular intellectual rebirth of the European Renaissance.
Like Peter the Great
The Slavophiles held the opposite view. They believed that Russia’s strength and future could be found only in the strong foundation of its own traditional culture. They regarded Russian Orthodoxy as the true form of Christianity and thought that its position as the “Third Rome” elevated it above all other European religious traditions. The Orthodox Church also provided the spiritual foundation for Russia’s absolute, divine-right monarchy, which the Slavophiles regarded as superior to all other forms of government.
The Slavophilic segment of the intelligentsia thought that these two great metaphysical models Russian Orthodoxy and absolute monarchy surpassed the rationalistic and materialistic liberalism of western Europe, which called for both religious toleration and the separation of church and state. This branch of the Russian realists also believed that the purest and most noble segment of the Russian nation was its patriarchal, agrarian, communal peasant society.
Fyodor Dostoevski’s
With the deaths of Dostoevski
The major accomplishment of the Russian realist movement, the abolition of serfdom, also reduced the economic power and security of Russia’s landed gentry. It was this segment of Russian society that had been the most conservative and anti-modernist. As their power declined, the way was opened for a new intellectual class that was far more revolutionary in its orientation. This new intelligentsia grew out of the social, political, and legal reforms of the 1860’s, which increased the number of attorneys, historians, and bureaucrats in the country. It was from the ranks of this new intellectual elite that many of the revolutionaries of the early twentieth century would emerge.
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Bloom, Harold, ed. Ivan Turgenev. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2003. Collection of essays about Turgenev’s life and work, including comparison of his writing to that of Ernest Hemingway and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and an introduction written by Bloom. One of the titles in the Modern Critical Views series. -
Kelly, Aileen. Toward Another Shore: Russian Thinkers Between Necessity and Chance. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998. Contains an excellent account of the philosophical worldview of the Russian realists. -
Leatherbarrow, W. J., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Dostoevskii. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Collection of essays interpreting various aspects of Dostoevski’s work, including his relationship to the Russian folk heritage, literature, religion, the family, money, and psychology. -
Ulam, Adam. Russia’s Failed Revolutionaries: From the Decembrists to the Dissidents. New York: Basic Books, 1981. This book is an excellent account of the history of Russian revolutionary movements. Index. -
Walicki, Andrzej. A History of Russian Thought: From the Enlightenment to Marxism. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1993. The best one-volume history of modern Russian thought. Index.
Decembrist Revolt
Second Russo-Turkish War
Dostoevski Is Exiled to Siberia
Crimean War
Courbet Establishes Realist Art Movement
Flaubert Publishes Madame Bovary
Emancipation of Russian Serfs
Naturalist Movement Begins
Bakunin Founds the Social Democratic Alliance
Alexander I; Fyodor Dostoevski; Aleksandr Herzen; Nicholas I; Ivan Turgenev.