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According to Belinsky Pushkin belonged to the school in art which has now had its day in Europe and which can no longer create a single great work even in Russia. History has outstripped Pushkin, taking away from most of his works that lively interest which is aroused by the painful and disturbing questions •of our time. This comment aroused and continues to arouse strong dissatisfaction of all supporters of pure art up to and including Mr. Volynsky: they maintained and still maintain that the content of Pushkin’s poetry will always be of the same interest to Russian readers. But they have not noticed an even greater heresy of Belinsky’s, a terrible heresy compared with which the view that we have just mentioned seems quite innocent. The fact is that Belinsky regarded Pushkin as a poet of noble estate. "In the person of Onegin, Lerisky and Tatyana Pushkin portrayed Russian society in one of the phases of its formation, of its development,” he says, "and (with what truth), with what fidelity, how fully and how artistically he portrayed it! We shall not speak of the multitude of minor portraits and sketches that form part of his poem and complete the picture of Russian society, high and middle; we shall not speak of the scenes of country balls and receptions in the capital, all this is so well known to our public and has long been fully appreciated (by it).... We shall make one remark only: the personality of the poet, so fully and vividly reflected in this poem, is everywhere so splendid, so humane, but at the same time predominantly aristocratic. Everywhere you see him as a person who belongs body and soul to the basic principle that constitutes the essence of the class he is portraying; in brief, everywhere you see a Russian landowner.... He attacks in this class everything that contradicts humanity; but the principle of the class is for him an eternal truth.... Arid this is why there is so much love in his satire, why his very negation so often resembles approval and admiration.... Remember the description of the Larin family in Chapter Two (and), particularly, the portrait of Larin himself.... This was the reason why much in Onegin

219 is now out of date. But without it Onegin would perhaps not have become such a full and detailed poem of Russian life, such a definite fact to reject the idea that is developing so quickly in this very society.” When we reread this passage, we asked ourselves: "How many times would Mr. Volynsky have fainted, if he had understood the whole of its terrible meaning?" But since it is obvious that Mr. Volynsky did not understand this passage, we shall make a few explanations which, we trust, will impart even more ardour to his terrible philippics against materialism.

p Already in his unfinished article on Fonvizin and Zagoskin Belinsky said that since poetry is truth in the form of contemplation the critic must first and foremost determine the idea that has been embodied in an artistic work. At that time determining the idea of an artistic work meant for Belinsky translating truth from the language of images into the language of logic. But in translating truth into the language of logic, the critic, according to Belinsky’s opinion at that time, had to determine the place which the idea in the artistic work under review occupied in the course of development of the absolute idea. Mr. Volynsky has in fact nothing against this view of criticism, since it was borrowed by Belinsky from Rotscher whom our present-day "true critic" seriously regards as a profound thinker. But Belinsky’s view of the historical significance of Eugene Onegin shows that in the latter years of his life he explained the idea of this novel not in terms of the development of the absolute idea, but in terms of the development of Russian social relations, the historical role and change in our estates. This is a whole revolution, it is precisely what the “economic” materialists recommend our critics of today. And Mr. Volynsky would have been perfectly justified in shouting at the top of his voice in view of such unpraiseworthy behaviour by Belinsky.

p By appealing to development in his criticism, Belinsky came closer to French criticism, which he had regarded with such contempt at the beginning of his literary activity. In order to explain how close he came to it, we shall refer to Alfred Michiels, a writer who is little known in France and quite unknown in Russia, but who deserves great attention because Taine borrowed all his general views on the historical development of art from him.

p In his llistoire de la peinture flamande, the first edition of which came out in 1844, Michiels says that he wants to explain the history of Flemish painting in terms of the social, political and industrial position of the country which produced it (expliquer les variations de la peinture a 1’aide de 1’etat social, politique et industriel). With regard to the well-known definition "literature is the expression of society’ he argues: "This is indisputable, but unfortunately it is too vague a principle. In what way does literature express society? How does this society itself develop? What 220 forms of art correspond to each given phase of social development? What elements of art correspond to each given social element? Inevitable tasks, vast and fruitful questions! The principle in question will obtain its true meaning only when it descends from the pale heights on which it now hovers, and thereby acquires precision, instructive fullness and the lucid profundity of a broad system expounded in detail."  [220•* 

p Belinsky explained Pushkin’s poetry by the social position of Russia and the historical role and the condition of the estate to which our great poet belonged. Michiels applied the same device to the history of Flemish painting. It is highly likely that Belinsky did not think out fully all the tasks that Michiels set the criticism and history of art. In this respect, perhaps, Michiels was ahead of Belinsky, but he lagged behind him in another, most important respect. In discussing the dependence which exists between forms of art, on the one hand, and phases of social development, on the other, Michiels overlooked the fact that every civilised society consists of estates or classes, the development and historical collisions of which throw an extremely revealing light on the history of all ideologies. Belinsky evidently already realised the importance of this fact, although he had not yet fully comprehended it. And in so far as he understood it, his views approached those of the modern materialists.

p No offence meant to Mr. Volynsky, but the view of Pushkin as a humane and educated poet from the Russian nobility is not only true in itself, but also provides a correct standpoint for understanding our modern enlighteners’ attitude to Pushkin. In the second half of the forties Belinsky was convinced that the collapse of serfdom in Russia and, consequently, of the nobility as an estate opposed to the other estates, was close at hand. In his eyes the “principle” of the nobility was an out-of-date principle. But he was capable of recognising the historical significance of this principle. He refers to the age during which the nobility was the most educated and "in all respects the best estate". Therefore he was able to grasp the poetry of its life well and feel for it. In the late fifties and early sixties our enlighteners were no longer capable of such an impartial attitude towards the nobility. The principle of the noble estate was unreservedly condemned by them. It is not surprising that they also condemned the poet in whose eyes this principle was an eternal truth. Pushkin’s poetry lacked all dreaminess, it was sober, it portrayed nothing but reality. This was enough for it to win Belinsky’s ardent approval. But Pisarev was bound to be irritated by this portrayal of the old days in the 221 enchanting light of poetry. And the more powerful Pushkin’s talent, the more negative the attitude of our enlighteners of the sixties towards him was bound to be. However, we shall discuss this later.

Now to resume: in the period of his reconciliation with reality Belinsky set himself the aim of finding objective principles for the criticism of artistic works and linking these principles with the logical development of the absolute idea. He found these sought-after objective principles in certain laws of the beautiful, which to a large extent were constructed by him (and his teacher) a priori without sufficient attention to the course of the historical development of art. But it is most important that in the latter years of his life he regarded not the absolute idea, but the historical development of social classes and class relations as the final instance for criticism. His criticism deviated from this trend, which was completely identical with the trend in which the philosophical thought of progressive Germany was developing in his day, only in cases when he abandoned the dialectical viewpoint for the viewpoint of the enlightener.  These deviations, which were inevitable in the historical conditions of that time and were in their way very useful for our social development, made him the father of the Russian enlighteners.