a in 1812, a wave of patriotism swept
over the country, and the struggle resulted in an increased sense of
unity and nationality. Russia emerged stronger and more solid from the
struggle. As far as foreign affairs were concerned, the Emperor
Alexander I--on whom everything depended--played his national part
well, and he fitly embodied the patriotic movement of the day. At the
beginning of his reign he raised great hopes of internal reform which
were never fulfilled. He was a dreamer of dreams born out of his due
time; a pupil of La Harpe, the Swiss Jacobin, who instilled into him
aspirations towards liberty, truth and humanity, which throughout
remained his ideals, but which were too vague to lead to anything
practical or definite. His reign was thus a series of more or less
undefined and fitful struggles to put the crooked straight. He desired
to give Russia a constitution, but the attempts he made to do so proved
fruitless; and towards the end of his life he is said to have been
considerably influenced by Metternich. It is at any rate a fact that
during these years reaction once more triumphed.

Nevertheless windows had been opened which could not be shut, and the
light which had streamed in produced some remarkable fruits.

When Alexander I came to the throne, the immediate effect of his
accession was the ungagging of literature, and the first writer of
importance to take advantage of this new state of things was KARAMZIN
(1726-1826). In 1802 he started a new review called the _Messenger of
Europe_. This was not his _debut_. In the reign of Catherine, Karamzin
had been brought to Moscow from the provinces, and initiated into
German and English literature. In 1789-90 he travelled abroad and
visited Switzerland, London and Paris. On his return, he published his
impressions in the shape of "Letters of a Russian Traveller" in the
_Moscow Journal_, which he founded himself. His ideals were
republican; he was an enthusiastic admirer of England and the Swiss,
and the reforms of Peter the Great. But his importance in Russian
literature lies in his being the first Russian to write unstudied,
simple and natural prose, Russian as spoken. He published two
sentimental stories in his _Journal_, but the reign of Catherine II
which now came to an end (1796) was followed by a period of
unmitigated censorship, which lasted throughout the reign of the
Emperor Paul, until Alexander I came to the throne. The new review
which Karamzin t