"Yes,
it is true." The pictures of nature, the portraits of the people, all
the good and all the bad of the good and the bad old times pass before
one with epic simplicity and the magic of a fairy-tale. One is
spellbound by the charm, the dignity, the good-nature, the gentle,
easy accent of the speaker, in whom one feels convinced not only that
there was nothing common nor mean, but to whom nothing was common or
mean, who was a gentleman by character as well as by lineage, one of
God's as well as one of Russia's nobility.

There is no book in Russian which, for its entrancing interest as well
as for its historical value, so richly deserves translation into
English; only such a translation should be made by a stylist--that is,
by a man who knows how to speak and write his mother tongue
perspicuously and simply.

CHAPTER V

THE EPOCH OF REFORM

For seven years after the death of Belinsky in 1848, all literary
development ceased. This period was the darkest hour before the dawn
of the second great renascence of Russian literature. Criticism was
practically non-existent; the Slavophiles were forbidden to write; the
Westernizers were exiled. An increased severity of censorship, an
extreme suspicion and drastic measures on the part of the Government
were brought about by the fears which the Paris revolution of 1848 had
caused. The Westernizers felt the effects of this as much as the
Slavophiles; a group of young literary men, schoolmasters and
officers, the Petrashevtsy, called after their leader, a Foreign
Office official PETRASHEVSKY, met together on Fridays and debated on
abstract subjects; they discussed the emancipation of the serfs, read
Fourier and Lamennais, and considered the establishment of a secret
press: the scheme of a popular propaganda was thought of, but nothing
had got beyond talk--and the whole thing was in reality only
talk--when the society was discovered by the police and its members
were punished with the utmost severity. Twenty-one of them were
condemned to death, among whom was Dostoyevsky, who, being on the army
list, was accused of treason. They were reprieved on the scaffold;
some sent into penal servitude in Siberia, and some into the army.
This marked one of the darkest hours in the history of Russian
literature. And from this date until 1855, complete stagnation
reigned. In 1855 the Emperor Nicholas died during the Crimean War; and
with the accession of his son Alexander II, a new