rsl1061 197522020364

Soviet Studies in Literature
ISSN: 0038-5875 (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/mrsl19
The Social Genesis of Oblomovism
V. F. Pereverzev
To cite this article: V. F. Pereverzev (1986) The Social Genesis of Oblomovism, Soviet Studies in
Literature, 22:2-3, 64-89
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.2753/RSL1061-197522020364
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The Social Genesis of
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Oblomovism*
The present article represents a section from a larger work on

Goncharov. The larger work examines the writer in the same
terms as my works published earlier on Dostoevsky and Gogol '.
In these works, I examine not the writer but what he wrote, not his
biography but his works. I do this because I believe that the first
task of a literary historian is to address the literary facts under
investigation.
I consider the least interesting aspect in a literary fact to be its
connection with the author's personality, and I am therefore not
interested in viewing a writer's works as a reflection of his life. A
work of literature is a fact of social life, and discerning its mean-
ing consists in understanding the social nature of this fact.
The social nature of the literary fact can and should be revealed
through purely literary analysis and a minimal attention to data
from the social sciences, since it is in the structure of the work of
art, in the particular features of the elements of which it is
composed that its social nature is revealed. Analysis of this struc-
ture is primary in my works.
The image is the basic structural element in a work of art. A
novel's fabric is composed of a chain of living images. The task of
literary analysis consists in understanding the nature of these
images and the laws according to which they are combined.
A close analysis of the images of which the fabric of
*"Sotsial 'ny genezis oblornovshchiny," Pechur' i revoliutsiia, no. 2

(1925), pp. 61-78.
64
SPRING-SUMMER 1986 65
Goncharov's novels is composed shows that all of his art, in

terms of both its development and its achievements, can be re-
duced to the realization of all the potential possibilities in a
single, crucial image. In my larger study, I examine the nature of
this image and trace the logic of its development. In that work,
Oblomov constitutes an element in the dialectical movement of
the image conditioned by its social essence. Here are several

general comments which I feel are necessary to an understanding
of the analysis of Oblomov found in the present section.
The meaning and content of Goncharov's art consists in a depic-

tion of the evolution of the psychology of the bourgeoisie in the
era of the capitalistic disruption of the life of Russian society. In
An Ordinary Story [Obyknovennaia istoriia] , Goncharov showed
the normal, ordinary course of this evolution, following his hero
through all phases of his psychological adaptation, including the
last phase, which was the most perfect for the situation in ques-
tion and the most adaptive. But Goncharov was aware that the
process of adaptation does not always proceed smoothly to the
final phase and that delays and interruptions can occur in an
individual's development, that there may be unlucky wretches
who lag behind. It is in the image of Oblomov that he shows one
of these unlucky wretches who is arrested in his development.
Oblomov demonstrates to us what would have happened to Alek-
sandr Aduev if he had become frozen in his spiritual development
and, having become convinced of the uselessness of trying to give
a romantic patina to the comfortable homelife of the Aduevs, had
given up this patina in the name of comfort and retreated to the
earlier Aduevka in its original, primitive condition. Oblomov
provides us with one version of Aleksandr Aduev. Like Aduev, he
is also a product of the profound crisis that was taking place in the
life of the prominent bourgeoisie in the years just before the
reform under the influence of the growth of capitalist culture.
However, the prominent bourgeoisie experienced this crisis quite
66 SOVIET STUDIES IN LITERATURE
differently from the way in which Aduev experienced it. Aduev is

a member of the prosperous bourgeoisie raised in a patriarchal
setting and adapted to capitalist culture, a Europeanized member
of the Russian bourgeoisie. Oblomov, on the other hand, is a
member of the bourgeoisie who has come into contact with the
process of Europeanization and has retreated to a patriarchal
setting.
I can already hear objections from my reader, objections that
are at first glance completely convincing and contradict what I
have said. How can Oblomov be a member of the bourgeoisie
when Goncharov says specifically that he was of gentry origin
and that he owned Oblomovka, his estate, which appears in his
dream as his childhood home and occupies his daydreams as the
goal and purpose of his entire existence? In answer to this, I
suggest that my reader look more closely at the scene in which
Oblomovka is depicted and he will see that it cannot be called a
country estate, that the term "village" applied to it by the author
cannot be justified, since the artist has not been able to depict a
village.
So clearly apparent is the nonvillage and nonestate character of
that heavenly spot, Oblomovka, that one can only be amazed that
critics have not noticed this up until now. It is not a village that we
see in the scene depicted by Goncharov; what we see, rather, goes
far beyond the confines of village life and probably has little to do
with it. Oblomovka is located not in a serf village but in an
extensive Russian province with its slowly flowing rivers, its easy
and peaceful natural setting, and its sleepy population. No vil-
lage, town, estate, or merchants' mansions are apparent in this
grandiose scene of an inert Russian province, because everything
disappears and runs together in it, because the province com-
prises village, town, estate, and mansions. The Oblomovs' house
is a particular little world unto itself in the limitless expanse of a
Russian province in the years before the reform, merging with it
into a single, organic whole. But this little world is not a gentry
estate, because it is not a village but simply a large and prosperous
house. Oblomov's dream depicts a Russian province sunk in a
heavy stupor, and the house, slumbering peacefully, living, as

they say, in plenty, is seen against this broad background. But
nowhere is there visible, either in the background or in the house
itself, any trace of a Russian village-with which Oblomov has no
acquaintance whatsoever or which he has seen only from afar, if
that. As a child, Oblomov never even glanced at a village. All his
impressions have to do only with the house, yard, and garden.

Thus it is that Oblomov's childhood, like that of Aleksandr
Aduev, was spent in a setting very different from that in which
Manilov and the Rudins of Russian literature grew up. The cre-
ators of Manilov and Rudin are talking about the pernicious effect
of gentry life. But Goncharov is talking about the effect of pre-
capitalist inertia and discontinuity on Russian psychology. Gon-
charov has imbued his Oblomov not with particular gentry char-
acteristics but with the inertia and somnolence in which all
Russia, from lord to peasant, lived in the prereform era. The
poison Goncharov's hero began to imbibe starting in his child-
hood was not the uselessness and idleness of the gentry but the
inertia and lack of dependability characteristic of the precapitalist
period.
A convincing argument against Oblomov's gentry origins, in
my view, is the fact that Goncharov placed his hero's comfortable
sofa not on a village estate but in Petersburg, on Gorokhovaia
Street, and had him end his days not on the Oblomovs' patrimoni-
al estate, under the watchful gaze of some Pul 'kheriia Ivanovna,
but on Vasil'ev Island, under the care of a simple bourgeois
woman, Agaf'ia Matveevna Pshenitsyna. This is not accidental
but inevitable. Such accidents do not occur, and they are simply
impermissible in a work of art. Goncharov did this unconscious-
ly, for he was subject to the logic of his art. He forgot completely
about his artificial intention to give his hero the appearance of a
landowner, thus inadvertently revealing his hero's secret and
subordinating himself to the demands of artistic truth. As the
product of the narrow world of the patriarchal bourgeoisie, not of
the broad expanses of a gentry estate, his disintegration when he
became disillusioned and worn out naturally had to occur in a
homely urban setting, not on an estate. Oblomov did not go back

to his estate not because he was extremely lazy but because he
never had a village and thus had nowhere to go.
It is very characteristic of Goncharov that although he called
his hero a landowner he nevertheless concealed Oblomov's actual
gentry attributes in the mist of some distant land. Oblomov is a
landowner, but you never see him on his estate, nor do you see the
estate itself, because it is very, very far away, "almost in Asia."
"After his mother and father died," Goncharov tells us, "he
became the sole owner of three hundred fifty souls which he had
inherited in one of the most distant provinces, almost in Asia."
Oblomov is a lord, but you never see this lord in a gentry milieu
or in a gentry setting, because his status as a lord is also very, very
distant, so distant that only the oldest servants retain the memory
of it. As Goncharov writes, "The legend of the old ways and the
family's importance fell into oblivion or lived on only in the
memory of a few elderly people who remained in the village."
Goncharov has removed everything having to do with the estate
and the gentry to such a distant point that it has all taken on the
character of something legendary and mythical; it has acquired
the character of a fairy tale. Oblomov has no blood ties whatso-
ever to these distant mythical realms. Oblomov's village is noth-
ing but a myth created by Goncharov to explain the absolute
indolence of his hero. In my view, this myth only spoils things,
because it introduces a false note of artificiality into the image of
I1 'ia I1 'ich. Oblomov was unable to become a landowner because
his creator attached a village to him only mechanically; Gon-
charov did not know how to give his hero the psychology of a
landowner with its sense of ordinary village life because he was
unfamiliar with that psychology.
All the thoughts and statements that Goncharov has Oblomov
think or say in order to make him seem to be a landowner are
exceptionally artificial and unnatural, and depend for their credi-
bility on a goodhearted lack of sophistication on the part of the
reader. Fortunately, there are very few of these thoughts and
remarks, so that they do not interfere seriously with the work's
literary value.
I will mention here one such passage, intended to reveal the
gentry nature of Goncharov's character. This is his long speech to
Zakhar about "others" and about himself. We can say without
hesitation that no Russian lord ever said or could have said any-
thing like this to his valet. And not only to his valet; a real lord
would never have said anything like this to himself, because the
whole speech seems to have been written deliberately to make
self-satisfaction sound like self-humiliation. It is ironic that in
speaking of his worth as a lord, Oblomov manages to include only
negative features of landowners in his remarks. The whole
speech smacks of those placed in the mouths of Moslem rulers in
olden times by the unsophisticated authors of popular songs such
as, "Do not believe in the true Christian creed; believe in my vile
Moslem creed. One senses immediately that these are the words
"
of the song's author, not of the Moslem ruler. Similarly, one

senses that Oblomov's speech to Zakhar has been invented by
Goncharov and is not a speech made by an actual landowner of the
prereform era.
During the whole first half of the novel, Oblomov thinks about
his plan for setting his estate to rights, dreaming of life on the
estate itself. This should also be an indication that Goncharov's
hero is of noble origins. But take a closer look at these dreams and
you will be amazed at the complete absence in them of any actual
features from life on a Russian estate. "I1 'ia I1 'ich began rework-
ing his plan for his estate. In his mind, he quickly ran over several
essential points about the tax the peasants were to pay and the
amount of land to be ploughed. He thought of a new and sterner
way to prevent idleness and absenteeism on the part of the peas-
ants, and went on to arrange his own way of life in the country. He
took up the question of how his future country house should be
built, dwelling with pleasure for some minutes on the layout of
the rooms, decided on the length and width of the dining room
and the billiard room, thought about which side his study win-
dows should look out on, and even gave some attention to the
furniture and carpets. After this, he planned the lodge and
considered the number of guests he planned to entertain, allotted

the space for the stables, barns, servants' quarters, and so forth. "
The actual running of the estate plays no role in Oblomov's plans;

there is nothing specific about the peasants, village, or land. It is
not the estate or the village that figure in Oblomov's dreams but
the house and its rich, luxurious rooms. Oblomov's plan is not the
plan of a landowner but of a large patriarchal home with wings,

outbuildings, cellars, and larders meant for a huge family with
hangers-on and numerous offspring. It is only this home that
Goncharov's hero perceives clearly, the "house living in plenty"
in which both he and the Aduevs grew up, and which they all
dream of as the ultimate goal of existence, trying only to replace
this patriarchal "plenty" by a more urban comfort.
Oblomov has never actually seen the village, peasants, or agri-
culture. He knows absolutely nothing about them, as he admits
candidly to Ivan Matveevich. "Listen," he says to him, "I have
no idea what corvCe is, what rural labor amounts to, or what it
means to be a poor peasant or a rich one; I have no idea what a
bushel of rye or oats is, what it is worth, in which month you sow
or reap, or when you sell." Oblomov is telling the truth about
himself here, but this truth has nothing whatsoever to do with the
characterization the author gave him as a landowner. Such abso-
lute ignorance of rural life would be psychologically impossible
for a serf owner. Gogol "s landowners are just as idle and careless
as Oblomov, but even fledgings from gentry nests such as Ivan
Fedorovich Shpon'ka, Afanasii Ivanovich Tovstogub, and Petr
Petrovich Petukh are well aware what corvCe is, and what rye is
and when you sow it. That Oblomov doesn't know any of this
testifies more clearly than anything to the fact that he has never
owned any peasants or employed corvCe labor, that he has always
gazed at the village from afar; if he has ever stopped by there, it
was only as a summer visitor on a day trip from the city.
All efforts at representing Oblomov as a landowner add a note
of falsity to the novel. Most critics have not noticed this falsity
because it is not essential to the novel and because it is lost in the
general artistic truth of the work as a whole. Nevertheless, even
when the novel first appeared, there were readers who sensed this
falsity. As one might have expected, it was critics from the gentry
milieu who perceived it, who were just as aware of Goncharov's
blunders in introducing elements from life on an estate as the
shoemaker in the well-known story about Apelles who perceived
the great painter's mistakes in depicting boots. Count Kuleshov-
Bezborodko, the landowner critic, referred to the novel's false

notes in an article about Oblomov and, taking an extreme posi-
tion, refused to consider it a scene from real life.
Generally speaking, one has only to address the question of
Oblomov's social position directly and clearly to sense that there
is something indefinably false about it. One of the most sensitive
psychological critics of our time, Mr. Ovsianniko-Kulikovskii,
obviously experienced difficulty in trying to answer the direct
question of Oblomov's class essence. "In essence," he wrote,
"the milieu most appropriate to him is either the semieducated,
patriarchal world of the landowners of Russia's remote provinces
of olden times, or the bourgeois world depicted in the last chap-
ters of the novel." This indecision on the part of an unquestion-
ably perceptive critic is the result of the confusion Goncharov
introduced into his novel in trying to interpret a figure who
obviously came from the prosperous bourgeoisie as a landowner.
If seeing Oblomov as a landowner is a misunderstanding, it is
even more of a misunderstanding to view him as a representative
of romantic idealism, as a superfluous man like Onegin or Rudin.
Nevertheless, it is this view that prevails in the critical literature.
It was Dobroliubov who first started this notion, declaring that
Goncharov had had the final say about this image and had re-
vealed the ultimate mystery about the Onegin type of Russian
hero. This is a gross error which has unfortunately bcome a
commonplace in the critical literature. In point of fact, Oblomov
has nothing to do psychologically with heroes like Onegin and
Rudin.
The characteristic and basic feature of these latter figures'
spiritual makeup is their perpetual sense of anxiety and quest.
They are restless, dissatisfied beings, fundamentally and not sim-
ply ideologically inclined toward pessimism. They are doomed to

search without surcease for spiritual value, to yearn endlessly for
spiritual peace and never find it. Oblomov is the complete oppo-
site of this. He is not a wanderer but a stay-at-home. Turmoil and
anxiety are not part of his nature. He is characterized, rather, by
inertia and immobility. "He saw nothing but clear days ahead and
happy, laughing faces without any worries or wrinkles, round

faces with rosy cheeks, double chins, and unflagging appetites.
Life would be one long, jolly summertime, with nothing but tasty
food and sweet idleness.'' This is the dream of a man who is easy-
going, soft, and easily satisfied. Pessimism, melancholy, spiritual
anguish, and suffering are alien to him. I1 'ia I1 'ich is the embodi-
ment of spiritual equilibrium and tranquility. There is nothing
more difficult for a superfluous man to find than tranquility;
while for Oblomov there is nothing harder than losing his sense of
equilibrium. A superfluous man lives by spiritual crisis and rarely
finds any spiritual peace. Oblomov, on the other hand, lives by
spiritual serenity, and spiritual crisis for him amounts to nothing
more than a gentle ripple, furrowing his soul only at rare mo-
ments. The very fabric of Oblomov's nature, his very tempera-
ment, differs greatly from that of superfluous men.
The critics who insist on Oblomov's resemblance to superflu-
ous men base their view on the fact that he is just as impractical
and barren of achievement in life as they. Even if this were the
case, any conclusions as to the similarity of these two types would
be premature and probably unfounded. But this is not in fact the
case, because Oblomov's impracticality is very different from
that of the superfluous men. The latter seek and fail to find any
reasonable application for their abilities. They seek a cause,
grasping it with both hands-yet nothing comes of their efforts.
Their sterility is the sterility of efforts unsuccessfully applied and
expended in vain. After all, even a primitive and elementary
superfluous man like Gogol "s Manilov was able to construct a
complicated gazebo on his estate which he called a "temple of
solitary contemplation." Oblomov's sterility is the sterility of
passivity and a kind of practical nihilism. 'Ten calls in one day,
"
poor fellow,' he concluded, turning over on his back and rejoic-

ing that he had no such empty thoughts and desires and that he did
not rush about but lay where he was, preserving his peace and
human dignity." Oblomov does not want to find anything to do;
he is not weighed down by his inactivity, but fearfully retreats
from the practical life that threatens him, entranced by the lazy,
slow course of existence and without any inclination whatsoever

toward doing anything. Work and efficiency frighten him and he
feels at home only in the lazy, semisomnolent vegetative life he
leads. "He was overwhelmed by the torrent of worldly cares and
went on lying in bed, turning from side to side. From time to time
one could hear him exclaim abruptly, 'Oh, dear, life doesn't leave
you in peace, it keeps on attacking you on all sides.' 'Oh,' Il'ia
I1 'ich sighed bitterly, 'what a life! How annoying this noisy cap-
ital is! When will the heavenly existence I long for come to be?
When will I be able to depart for the familiar fields and glades of
my childhood home? If only I could lie there now under a tree,
gazing at the sun through the branches and counting how many
little birds flit from branch to branch,' and so forth." We can
hardly call Oblomov impractical. We use the term "impracticali-
ty" to refer to the useless waste of energy. But it would be
ridiculous to reproach Oblomov for this. He may be guilty of
much else, but this is one thing for which no one can blame him.
The superfluous men were all idealists and romantics. They
did not confine their thinking to a narrow sphere of egotistical
and utilitarian interests. They were concerned with general ques-
tions of existence; their thought was taken up with social and
universal matters. They were much inclined toward philosophical
thought and toward working out a civic ideal. They were capable
of reaching gloomy conclusions, of the black pessimism of Pe-
chorin, or of retaining their optimistic faith and bright hopes like
Rudin; but their main characteristic was always a breadth of
conception and ideals.
Nothing of the sort is the case with Oblomov. "He was capable
of experiencing the pleasures of grandiose schemes," Ovsianni-
kov-Kulikovskii observes, trying to link Oblomov to the tribe of
idealists of the 1840s. But just take a look at what these schemes
amounted to. "He sometimes loved to imagine himself as some
kind of invincible conqueror, beside whom Napoleon and even
Eruslan Lazarevich could not hold a candle. He would invent a
war and the reason for it-for example, the peoples of Africa were
invading Europe; or he was mounting a new crusade and entering
upon a new campaign, deciding the fate of nations, ravaging

cities, pardoning, executing, or performing feats of kindness and
magnanimity." These schemes do not go beyond the naive
amusement offered by primitive fairy tales. An enormous intel-
lectual gulf separates them from the schemes of the Pechorins and
Rudins of Russian literature, a gulf that Oblomov does not even
attempt to span. "Serious reading made him tired. Philosophers
had not succeeded in arousing a longing for speculative truth in
him. . . ." 'I know nothing about books,' he wanted to say, but
"
instead sighed sorrowfully." Philosophy is completely alien to

him, and social questions hold no interest whatsoever for him. If
he lets drop a word or two on a social topic, it amazes one by how
remarkably elementary it is for an educated person. In this re-
gard, Oblomov is no more developed or clearheaded than his
lackey Zakhar, who is a serf. Just remember the brief conversa-
tion Oblomov has with Zakhar about literacy. "'If you want to
write something down," Oblomov reproached his servant irrita-
bly, "it's very bad to be illiterate!' 'I've lived my whole life and
done no worse than anyone else without knowing how to read and
write,' Zakhar objected, looking off to one side. 'Stolz is right in
saying elementary schools should be set up in the countryside,'
Oblomov thought to himself. 'I've heard tell that the Il'inskiis
had a literate servant,' Zakhar continued, 'and he stole the silver-
ware from the buffet.' 'Forgive me for thinking it,' Oblomov
thought timidly, 'but it's true that these literate peasants are a
dissolute lot, going around from tavern to tavern with their accor-
dions begging for money. . . . No, it really is a little soon to set
up schools.' What we have here is such elementary and feeble
"
thought about social matters that you won't get anywhere with it.
Oblomov's thinking does not go beyond the personal concerns of
his own family; it is extremely egotistical and utilitarian, not to

mention, naturally, extremely narrow. Only just recall the ideal of
life that I1 'ia I1 'ich outlines to his friend Stolz. Even Stolz, who is
certainly not remarkable for his interest in social matters, turns
away from Oblomov, scornfully and with utter justification refer-
ring to it as "Oblomovism. Even in his wildest dreams, Gon-
"
charov's hero is unable to go beyond the ideal of living a safe

domestic existence among his children and household staff, with
a kindly neighbor nearby, reading works of poetry and listening
to the sound of a piano in a sunny parlor.
Just take a look at the ideal of comfort that Oblomov has before
him as he gazes expectantly into the splendid future. "It seemed
to him that he was sitting on the terrace over tea on a summer
evening, under a canopy of leaves that the sun could not pene-
trate, lazily drawing the smoke from a long pipe into his lungs,
thoughtfully contemplating the scene that stretched out beyond
the trees, and enjoying the cool, quiet air. In the distance, the
fields were turning yellow and the sun was going down behind the
familiar birches, casting a rosy glow upon the mirrored surface of
the pond. Steam rose from the fields, the air grew cooler, and
twilight began to creep in. The peasants were returning home in
crowds. The servants were sitting idly by the gate, and one could
hear cheerful voices, laughter, and the sound of a balalaika. Girls
were playing tag, his own children tumbled about him, crawling
up on his lap and hanging on his neck, and at the samovar sat . . .
the queen of everything around him, his goddess, a woman, his
wife! Meanwhile, welcoming lights burned in the dining room,
furnished with elegant simplicity, where Zakhar, now elevated to
the position of butler, his sidewhiskers now completely white,
was setting a large, round table, putting the crystal and silver
around with a pleasant clinking sound, constantly dropping a
glass or fork. Everyone sat down to the groaning board. Here sat
the companion of his youth, his faithful friend Stolz, and other
familiar faces, too. Later they would all go to bed. Oblomov's
face suddenly flushed with happiness, for his dream was so vivid,
so alive, so poetical, that he put his face into the pillow for an
instant." There isn't a trace of action, of social commentary in

this ideal. One can only call a man with such views an idealist and
romantic in a spirit of mockery. Oblomov's ideal is not above
reality or outside reality; it essentially represents the very modest
ideal of personal well-being of which any philistine might dream,
a narrow and limited little ideal which has grown into the ground
like a hummock, not the ideal of a romantic which strains up-

ward, toward some unknown realm.
Thus, Oblomov is neither the landowner, romantic, or super-
fluous man that most critics think he is. He is completely out of
place in the gallery of superfluous men in Russian literature and
landed there only through a misunderstanding. It was the crisis of
Russian patriarchalism that gave rise to Oblomov, not the crisis of
the Russian gentry, which gave rise to the superfluous man. The
intrusion of capitalism into Russian life entailed not only a rea-
lignment of social classes but profound changes in the entire
national psychology. Capitalism not only constituted a negation
of the gentry; it was also a negation of the outmoded technology
of the serf economy and along with it the outmoded patriarchal
psychology of Russians of all classes and social positions. It
entered Russian life with the new technology of the machine and
steam, speeding up the tempo of social life and requiring and
encouraging mobility, initiative, and knowledge in every person.
The rhythmic and rapid hammering of the steam engine destroyed
the sleepy, listless life of Russia's natural economy, introducing
greater tension into labor and energy, speeding up the transport of
things and people, shortening distances, and bringing villages
and towns, towns and countries closer together. The new order
required a new type of individual who knew how to measure time
in minutes and seconds, who was quick to take initiative and able
to match the tempo of his own motions to that of machines, who
knew that it was not an imaginary kingdom that lay beyond his
city, and who understood what steam pressure was and what a
lever was. An individual who did not have these abilities and who
retained a patriarchal outlook, who was adapted only to the slow
rhythm of a precapitalist economy would be left behind. There
were many such persons in all classes of society. They were found
among the serfs, the landowners, and the urban bourgeoisie.
Oblomov is this sort of person, and, moreover, unquestionably of
urban origins. His nature is the result of clashes between the
patriarchal and capitalistic city. His entire life rests between these
two poles, the old-fashioned but wealthy estate of the Oblomovs
in the patriarchal city of the prereform era, and Petersburg, the

bearer of the new capitalistic currents in Russian life.
From Oblomovka I1 'ia I1 'ich took his passivity and incapacity
for regular work, which reached exceptional proportions in him.
"Everything there was imbued with an atmosphere of primeval
indolence, simple values, silence, and inertia." The atmosphere
of slow, unhurried precapitalist existence bred this indolence and
lack of labor discipline in them, becoming a national characteris-
tic that is still apparent in Russians.
We should not, however, forget that this national chacteristic
takes on a specific quality in Oblomov. The estate of Oblomovka
is not a serf village but an urban property, and this point is of great
significance in the present instance. The inertia of the Oblomov
family is not the inertia of slaves working unwillingly under
threat of the knout, inertia with an admixture of irritation and
malice; nor is it the inertia of a lord liberated from household
concerns by free labor, inertia, that is, coupled with vague feel-
ings of injustice and repentance. The inertia of the Oblomovs is a
free and unencumbered inertia, the pure product of the slow pace
of precapitalist existence and a rather high level of economic
security. Their tendency to inertia is not clouded by any outcry on
the part of the gentry, by any hidden irritation, but develops out in
the open, transformed into a serene, tranquil indolence. This
tranquil indolence is not disturbed by the pangs of conscience a
serf owner might experience, and therefore their peace and tran-
quility here becomes a happy way of life. "Life had not branded
them, as it does others, with premature wrinkles, diseases, or
devastating moral blows. The good people conceived of life as a
state of perfect repose and idleness, disturbed from time to time
by various unpleasant accidents such as illness, losses, quarrels,
and, incidentally, work." These particular circumstances of Ob-

lomovism also explain the spiritual equilibrium, the unwavering
sense of inner optimism in which Goncharov's heroes spend their
lives. They have inherited their optimistic mood from Oblo-
movka along with their serene indolence.
It is from Oblomovka, too, that they have taken their charac-
teristic indifference to social issues. The life of the inhabitants of

Oblomovka passes far from the fundamental social conflict that
imbues the civic thought of the era. Serfdom is both the point of
departure and the ultimate end of all the social issues in that era.
It is completely obvious that the question of serfdom should be of
vital concern to everyone directly affected by it, that is, to all the
landowners and peasants. The social conflict between the serfs
and their owners made everyone conscious of social questions
from childhood on. But this conflict is completely absent in Oblo-
movka, amounting only to narrow clashes between hired servants
and their masters. The Oblomov family acquired neither love nor
hatred for serfdom from their experiences on the estate, but only
complete indifference to this vital issue of the era. The pulse of
life in society beat feverishly, making those who heard it burn
with an inner fire. But this life was too far away from the Oblo-
mov family to reach the childish ears of Il'ia Il'ich.
Another powerful factor in developing their social conscious-
ness was also absent from the life of the inhabitants of Oblo-
movka, a factor that undoubtedly played an important role in the
life of the superfluous men. This was the tradition of civic activ-
ism. This tradition still lived on in each gentry family, because
prior to the nineteenth century this was the sole class capable of
political action and having a sense of civic duty. From their
earliest years, the Pechorins and Rudins of Russia had heard tales
of the social activism of their ancestors. The Oblomovs could not
have heard anything of the sort, because their class had not taken
an active part in building society.
"Raised in the depths of the country amidst the gentle and
kindly manners and customs of his native province, he spent the
first twenty years of his life being passed from the arms of one set
of relatives, friends, and acquaintances to those of another, and

was so imbued with the family principle that his future govern-
ment service appeared to him to be a sort of family pursuit."
Oblomovka was a poor school for developing a social conscience.
However, it did a splendid job of inculcating and encouraging
domestic and family instincts. The freedom he experienced with-
in the family pampered his childish soul, took possession of it,

and enslaved it. It was on this foundation that an indestructible
ideal of a protected life within the family, of a life at home
unshadowed by sorrow, took root in the soul of I1 'ia I1 'ich.
Ultimately, this narrow life, a life that was happy in its why but
limited by the four walls of the house, made the inhabitants of
Oblomovka extremely narrowminded. Within their narrow con-
fines, everything was clear, simple, and comprehensible. Nothing
disturbed their spiritual and intellectual tranquility. No eternal
questions troubled the inhabitants of Oblomovka. "Did they ask
themselves what the purpose of life was?" Goncharov writes.
"Only God knows. And how did they answer this question? They
probably didn't have any answer, because it all seemed so very
simple and obvious to them. They had never heard of any life full
of hard work, of people overwhelmed by anxious worries, scurry-
ing from one corner of the earth to another or giving their lives to
ceaseless labor. The inhabitants of Oblomovka had trouble believ-
ing one could experience any anxieties. What, after all, was there
for them to worry about?" Thought had become completely
dulled and mental existence was reduced to the workings of the
imagination and feeling. But even imagination did not attain great
heights in them, and feeling was limited strictly to a sense of
homely tenderness and well-being arising out of a particular kind
of emotional slackness due to their life of untroubled satiety.
Such was the psychological effect of the old-fashioned life in
Oblomovka. If the foundations of this life had not been shaken,
all the psychological features indicated would have been in com-
plete harmony with it, and I1 'ia I1 'ich Oblomov's psychological
state, too, uniting and carefully preserving these features, would
have been completely harmonious. He would have turned out to
be a fine representative of old-world Oblomovka, completely

healthy and vital. He would have lived to the fullest the life
available under conditions existing at the time. He would have
been completely at home in the primitive, patriarchal world of
simplicity, like his father and grandfather before him, who, as
Goncharov puts it, "wanted no other life and would not have
liked any other life." They would have been dismayed at any
change in their existence, no matter what such change might have
entailed. They would have been sick with remorse if tomorrow
was not like today and the day after tomorrow did not resemble
tomorrow. But circumstances changed, and the old foundations of
life in Oblomovka collapsed.
The capitalist era was beginning, opening new horizons before
Oblomov. The gentry and landowner class lost ground, and life
opened broad perspectives before the urban population, before
the third estate, and, in particular, before its upper strata, to
which the Oblomovs belonged. New opportunities opened before
them, but they were also faced, of course, with new responsibil-
ities. It was they who were to take the place of the enfeebled
landowner class, who were to assume responsibility for building
society. Life had much to offer to the Oblomovs, but "much is
demanded of those who receive much.'' Life offered a new role to
the Oblomovs, and it was up to them whether they wanted to rise
to the top or remain below, whether they wanted to make use of
the new opportunities offered by a newer, fuller, and more power-
ful existence, or sink into oblivion in the narrow, run-down world
of Oblomovka.
In order to rise to the top in the new role offered them, they
would have had to have brought their psychological outlook into
harmony with the changing social position of their class, to have
rid themselves of much that had been completely rational and
positive in the old, precapitalistic Oblomov character, and to have
acquired much that would have been useless and even bad under
the old conditions. The psychological characteristics of the old
world of the Oblomovs of which I spoke earlier no longer served
to fulfill the historical mission presented to the prosperous stra-
tum of the third estate; these characteristics constituted a danger-

ous ballast which they had to jettison. In order to become a
positive, up-to-date hero of the contemporary milieu, one now
needed a serious education, social consciousness, and an energet-
ic, aggressive temperament.
The Oblomovs had a vague, instinctive sense of this, as is
always the case, and began to stir and try to reorient themselves to
the new situation and adapt to it. "The era of the Prostakovs and
Skotinins had long since disappeared. The proverb 'Learning is
light and ignorance is darkness' was already making its way into
the villages together with the books sold by book pedlars. Sinister
rumors began to be bruited about concerning the need for not only
a knowledge of reading and writing but of other, hitherto un-
heard-of subjects." These intimations of a new life had mainly to
do with I1 'ia I1 'ich's school and university experience. [Though
he went] unwillingly, complaining the whole time, his parents
nevertheless sent him off to school. "Like other children of the
time, he attended a boarding school until he was fifteen, when his
parents, after a long struggle, decided to send Iliusha to Moscow,
where he was obliged to finish the course of study whether he
wanted to or not." Oblomov had a hard time in school, finding
his studies difficult. He unwillingly turned his somnolent atten-
tion to the profundities of university education. "He never went
beyond the place his teacher marked with his nail in making the
assignment, and never raised any questions or asked that anything
be explained to him. He was content with whatever was written in
his notebook and displayed no troublesome curiosity even when
he did not understand everything that he heard and learned. If he
somehow succeeded in wading through a book on statistics, his-
tory, or political economy, he was perfectly satisfied." His men-
tal torpor, the result of the patriarchal comfort in which he had
grown up, and his lack of any sense of moral fervor or curiosity
made the university somehow an alien and even hostile environ-
ment for I1 'ia I1 'ich, a world that intruded forcibly into his peace-
ful existence. "It all seemed to be a kind of punishment sent from
heaven for our sins." Essentially, a kind of muted struggle went
on between Oblomov and the university, and it was only with

great difficulty that the latter could make slight breaches in his
virginal, patriarchal soul.
If Oblomov was very resistant to any modifications university
education might make in his character, the university of that time,
too, constituted a poor system for changing Oblomov's psycho-
logical makeup. Although the university in the prereform years

comprised all classes of society, it was not a classless institution,
and primarily served students from the gentry, insofar, of course,
as it was not simply an official school for training government
bureaucrats. Whatever was not permeated there by an official
atmosphere was imbued with a romantic spirit, in keeping with
the impulses and aspirations of the progressive gentry milieu. A
young Oblomov awakening to the new way of life would encoun-
ter primarily philosphical, social, and aesthetic romanticism at
the university.
Romanticism arose out of a background that was completely
different from that of Oblomovka and many aspects of it were
therefore doomed to remain incomprehensible to Goncharov's
hero. I don't think I will be in error if I say that Oblomov felt at
the university like one of the young members of the nobility sent
by Peter I to study abroad. Everything was new and strange to
him. Much of it appealed to him, even more was incomprehensi-
ble, and there was a great deal that he absorbed and imitated,
although without understanding it, superficially accommodating
himself to a different standard. Romanticism's philosophical
quests were beyond Goncharov's hero, and he refused to navigate
its deep waters. "Philosophers had not succeeded in arousing a
longing for speculative truth in him," Goncharov tells us. He
paid no attention to the civic notes of Romanticism either, be-
cause they had no meaning for him. Its aesthetic aspects, howev-
er, were far more accessible, as one might expect. Readers find it
easy to get carried away by Romantic poetry, they find great
interest in Romantic heroes, and they like to be able to imitate
them whenever possible. Stolz recalls in the novel how his friend
was carried away by Rousseau, Schiller, Goethe, and Byron, how
he exclaimed, seethed, and burned under the effect of their poet-

ry. "These poets affected him deeply," Goncharov writes, "and
a happy time in his life ensued, a time of rising powers, hopes for
the future, and a desire for the good things of life, for valor and
action, an era when his heart and pulse b a t furiously, a period of
anxiety, ecstatic words, and sweet tears. His mind and heart came
alive, he shook off his somnolent ways, and his soul longed for
action. "
Of course, there was much that was lacking in his understand-
ing of these poets and their heroes. Oblomov understood every-
thing rather simplistically, bringing it all down to the level of his
childhood experience at home. He understood only whatever had
some analogy with conditions at Oblomovka. The love, friend-
ship, and poetry that played a significant role in the life of the
Romantic heroes were very familiar to an Oblomov, although not
manifested in such a splendid form. It was these elements that
Oblomov noticed and admired in Romantic poetry. But even here
he did not understand everything. The individualistic character of
such feelings on the part of the Romantic heroes completely
escaped him. He adapted them mentally to conform with patriar-
chal traditions, introducing a domestic rather than an individual-
istic content into them. Under the influence of these poets, Gon-
charov's hero elaborated a unique and essentially utopian ideal in
which the old-fashioned life of the family was imbued with refine-
ment, spiritual content, and poetry.
It was from this point on that Oblomov would begin to try to
realize the strange, inherently contradictory ideal of an indolent
yet active, somnolent yet energetic, quiet yet noisy existence. In
Goncharov's words, "He continually sought a way of life, a
mode of existence, which would be full of meaning and at the
same time would flow quietly, day by day, drop by drop, in the
mute contemplation of nature and the quiet, hardly creeping
events of peacefully bustling life." It was a far cry from this ideal
of personal, domestic life to a definition of one's social position.
Even as a personal, domestic ideal, moreover, it was not satisfac-
tory, since it represented a lifeless amalgam of Oblomov's
essential nature with a Romanticism that was completely alien to

him. This ideal was important not so much because of its positive
content but rather because of its critical position with regard to
the old-fashioned atmosphere of Oblomovka. As a positive ideal,
it could even be harmful, since it could lead an individual away
from the direct path toward impracticable utopian visions. But in
terms of its critical attitude toward Oblomovka, there is no ques-

tion that this ideal signaled a new awareness of the fact that
conditions had changed and that life had to be restructured in a
new way.
Whatever its effect, there is no question that the university had
a profound influence on I1 'ia I1 'ich's psychological outlook. He
was no longer the virginally patriarchal inhabitant of Oblomovka
he had once been. "He no longer resembled either his father or
his grandfather," Goncharov tells us. "He had studied at the
university and had lived in the world; and all this suggested ideas
to him that had never occurred to them." From reading poetry
and studying at the university, Oblomov had acquired a kind of
yen for action, a vague feeling that he should do something that
would be consonant with his family's new social circumstances.
He sensed that his life might move in a broad channel quite
different from the patriarchal bourgeois life of Oblomovka, that a
wide road to a career and fortune lay before him. "He was filled
with a variety of aspirations, always hoping for something and
expecting a great deal from fate and from himself. He was forever
preparing to enter a new walk of life, to assume a position-
especially, of course, in government service." He bestirred him-
self, spread his wings, and set out for the very center of future
capitalist culture in Russia, Petersburg. Here, Il'ia Il'ich soon
saw how baseless was the plan for life with which he had left the
university. He immediately perceived that someone like him was
unsuited to life in either Oblomovka or Petersburg. The taste for
culture which I1 'ia I1 'ich had acquired at the university was not
appropriate to the patriarchal life of Oblomovka, while the long-
ing for indolence and family life with which Oblomovka had
imbued him was not in accord with Petersburg culture. "He
became very troubled when envelopes inscribed 'important' and

'very important' flitted past his eyes, when he had to make
various inquiries or copy out extracts, go through files, or write
folios two inches thick which, absurdly enough, were known as
'notes.' To make matters worse, everything had to be done in a
hurry. Everyone seemed to be rushing off somewhere without
stopping. They no sooner finished a case when they furiously

seized upon another, as though it were the one that mattered after
all; but when they had finished with that one, they forgot it and
pounced upon a third-and there was no end to this process! Two
or three times he had been aroused at night in order to copy out
something, and several times he had been fetched by a courier
from a friend's house-all for the sake of copying something out.
All this frightened and bored him terribly.'' I1 'ia I1 'ich was con-
vinced that there was no chance of combining patriarchal comfort
with cultural interests, that he would only end up falling between
two stools and landing in an abyss. One had either to let go once
and for all of the comforts of Oblomovka, of its old-fashioned
negligence and physical and spiritual inertia in order to become
active in the new bourgeois, capitalistic culture, or to extinguish
all interest in culture, return to the past, and live the quiet,
comfortable life of one's fathers and grandfathers. There was no
other choice.
Petersburg posed the question directly and very acutely of
whether Goncharov's hero should be a member of the cultural
bourgeoisie, a forward-looking man of his class. "To go forward
or stay behindw-this was the fateful question with which
Il'ia Il'ich was faced, in Goncharov's words. "This Oblomov
question, the author continues, "was more profound than Ham-
"
let's. Going forward meant casting his dressing gown not only off
his shoulders but off his soul and mind. . . . Staying behind meant
putting his shirt on inside out, lying on the sofa listening to
Zakhar hopping about, having dinner with Tarant 'ev, and not
giving so much thought to everything." This "Oblomov ques-
tion" confronted every inhabitant of any patriarchal, bourgeois
homestead on the eve of the Great Reform, and each of them
resolved it in his own way, depending on the particular circum-

stances in which he had grown up.
The spirit of bourgeois patriarchalism was far too deeply root-
ed in Oblomov. His preference for the easy, satisfying tranquility
of olden times was far stronger than was his desire for the advan-
tages of culture. Although he would not have minded if these
easy, satisfying ways had been overlaid with a veneer of culture,

he was not willing to relinquish the comforts so dear to his heart
for the sake of any culture.
When he saw that the veneer of culture could not be applied to
patriarchal Oblomovka, when he was faced squarely with the
dilemma of choosing either a cultivated or an easy existence, he
swung listlessly in the direction of culture a few times, and then
gently, silently, and easily swung back again.
Gradually disintegrating, losing one refined habit after an-
other, he ended up in his old dressing gown, lovingly wrapping
himself in it and drowning all cultural impulses in its folds, and
turned out to be just like his father and grandfathers before him.
"He lazily lost any hope for all the youthful aspirations that had
failed him or that he had failed, for all the tenderly sorrowful
recollections that cause others' hearts to beat in old age. In
looking more closely at his way of life and giving it more thought,
he came more and more accustomed to it and finally decided that
he need go no further, that he had nothing further to seek, and that
his life's ideal had been realized, although without any poetry,
without those rays of light with which his imagination had at one
time depicted the expansive, untroubled life of the gentry." If
culture could not be combined with patriarchal comfort, never
mind-he would stick with comfort. This is how Il'ia Il'ich re-
solved the dilemma life had posed him.
The story of Oblomov is the story of a member of the bourgeoi-
sie who was arrested in his cultural development and who slowly
but unswervingly experienced an evolution in reverse, returning
to a primeval state of patriarchal, bourgeois existence. In his more
lucid, conscious moments, Oblomov had to recognize sorrowfuly
that he was a backward person, an indolent and crafty fellow who
had hidden his light under a bushel. "He had to recognize with
pain and sorrow that his development had been arrested, that he
had not matured emotionally, and that he bore a burden that
interfered with everything. He was consumed by envy over the
full and expansive manner in which others lived, while a heavy
rock seemed to have been cast onto the narrow and wretched path
of his existence. A bitter consciousness emerged in his timid soul

of the fact that many aspects of his nature had never awakened at
all, while others had only been barely aroused, and not a one of
them had developed fully. At the same time, he felt keenly that
some sort of bright principle was buried deep within him as
though in a grave, that it had perhaps already died or was lying
like gold in the bowels of the earth, and that this gold should long
ago have been common currency. But the treasure was heaped
high with a heavy load of rubbish, with litter that had fallen on it.
And he could no longer work its way free and emerge out of the
wilderness onto the open path. The forest lay close about, and
within his soul it had become ever denser and darker. The path
was becoming more and more overgrown, reached more and
more rarely by bright consciousness, which aroused the slumber-
ing forces within him only for an instant. His mind and will had
long since become paralyzed, evidently irretrievably so." This
inner monologue reveals a truly fearful picture of movement in
reverse, of the degradation of moral forces. It is the portrayal of
this psychological dissolution, this retrograde movement of a
bourgeois soul that constitutes the novel's main content, de-
scribed with extraordinary clarity and force.
The story of Il'ia Il'ich has nothing to do with that of the
superfluous man. No analogy can be drawn between his biogra-
phy and that of the Onegins and Rudins of Russian literature. On
the other hand, this biography represents an almost word-for-
word reiteration of what Goncharov has to say about his first
hero, Aleksandr Aduev. Oblomov's childhood and that of Aduev
are as alike as two drops of water. We find in them the same
indolence and serenity, the same maternal caresses, the same
nursemaid's fairy tales promising the child the Firebird and all
the other wonders of the earth, and the same absence of any
knowledge of human misfortune, poverty, or bondage.
The difference between them lies only in the fact that in Oblo-
mov the hero's childhood is depicted with greater mastery and in
greater detail than in An Ordinary Story. In the latter, Aduev's
childhood is sketched in in passing, because the author's entire
attention is directed toward depicting the youthful crisis that his

favorite hero experienced. Less than a page is devoted to Aduev's
childhood. In Oblomov, on the other hand, an entire, lengthy
chapter is devoted to the hero's childhood, and it is one of the best
in the whole novel. We may safely say that it is in Oblomov that
Goncharov offers the sole extended, clear, and artistically fin-
ished account of a childhood typical for the milieu in which his
hero grew up. Aduev, Raiskii, and Podzhabrin come alive only
when one conceives of them in terms of this childhood. The
account of Oblomov's school and university years is far less vivid
than that of his childhood. One senses that this later phase in
Oblomov's life was far less interesting to Goncharov than the
early period. But in Aduev's life it is even more feebly depicted,
far less vividly than in Oblomov. In An Ordinary Story we find
only a brief mention of this stage in Aduev's life. If one compares
this brief account with what is said about Oblomov's school and
university years, one concludes that here, too, Oblomov copies
Aduev, because the remarks about Aduev are repeated almost
word for word in the later novel. There we find the same unwill-
ing completion of the course of study, the same enthusiasm for
Romantic poets, and, finally, the same inclination toward a more
refined way of life than the primitive, easy existence Oblomovism
has to offer. Later we find both heroes living the same life in
Petersburg. The first impressions of the big city and the early
experiences serving in the government are exactly the same for
both of them. These experiences end in disappointment for both,
prompting them both to turn to a life lounging in a dressing gown
on a comfortable sofa. Both heroes became frightened by the
anxieties and work required by life in a cultured milieu, and both
pusillanimously ran away from cultured people, hiding from
them in a dressing gown; both found themselves surrounded by
crude, uneducated individuals, Aduev by Kostiakov and Oblo-

mov by Tarant 'ev. There is an absolute parallel between Aduev
and Oblomov up to this point. But after this their paths diverge
fundamentally. Aduev does not remain in his dressing gown; he
does not become arrested in his development. He discovers a way
to a cultured form of bourgeois happiness, of comfort. He rids
himself of inertia and the patriarchal way of life, throws off his
dressing gown, and adopts a European style of dress. Only one
chapter of An Ordinary Story is taken up with Aduev's reclining
on the sofa and associating with Kostiakov. In Oblomov, on the
other hand, this is not just the subject of one chapter; it is the
substance of the entire novel.
I1 'ia I1 'ich went no further in his development and returned to
the circumstances of a primitive inhabitant of Oblomovka. His
story is not one of progress toward culture but of cultural degra-
dation, of the slow but sure extinction of the seeds of culture cast
into his soul. The author's main purpose in the novel Oblomov is
depicting this degradation and this extinction, depicting the
hero's retrograde movement from a European frockcoat to an
Asiatic dressing gown. Everything in this work is directed toward
depicting the negligent existence that was only an episode in An
Ordinary Story.
There is no question that Aduev and Oblomov are genetically
linked. They are both children of the same milieu and the same
era. Two antagonistic, irreconcilable tendencies came into con-
flict in their psyches, a tendency toward bourgeois patriarchalism
and a tendency toward bourgeois cultural development. Both
characters are identical in this regard. The difference between
them lies only in the fact that one embodies the triumph of the
cultural tendency, while the other depicts the dissolution of the
bourgeois psyche. Aleksandr Aduev embodies a progressive ten-
dency on the part of the bourgeoisie toward taking the building of
culture into their own hands; while Oblomov represents a regres-
sive, retrograde movement toward the patriarchalism of olden
times, a refusal to fulfill the cultural mission that history placed
before the bourgeoisie.

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Soviet Studies in Literature

ISSN: 0038-5875 (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/mrsl19

The Social Genesis of Oblomovism

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*"Sotsial 'ny genezis oblornovshchiny," Pechur' i revoliutsiia, no. 2

Goncharov's novels is composed shows that all of his art, in

the image conditioned by its social essence. Here are several

The meaning and content of Goncharov's art consists in a depic-

differently from the way in which Aduev experienced it. Aduev is

heavy stupor, and the house, slumbering peacefully, living, as

impressions have to do only with the house, yard, and garden.

homely urban setting, not on an estate. Oblomov did not go back

of the song's author, not of the Moslem ruler. Similarly, one

considered the number of guests he planned to entertain, allotted

The actual running of the estate plays no role in Oblomov's plans;

plan of a landowner but of a large patriarchal home with wings,

Bezborodko, the landowner critic, referred to the novel's false

ply ideologically inclined toward pessimism. They are doomed to

happy, laughing faces without any worries or wrinkles, round

poor fellow,' he concluded, turning over on his back and rejoic-

slow course of existence and without any inclination whatsoever

upon a new campaign, deciding the fate of nations, ravaging

instead sighed sorrowfully." Philosophy is completely alien to

his own family; it is extremely egotistical and utilitarian, not to

charov's hero is unable to go beyond the ideal of living a safe

instant." There isn't a trace of action, of social commentary in

like a hummock, not the ideal of a romantic which strains up-

in the patriarchal city of the prereform era, and Petersburg, the

and, incidentally, work." These particular circumstances of Ob-

teristic indifference to social issues. The life of the inhabitants of

of relatives, friends, and acquaintances to those of another, and

in the family pampered his childish soul, took possession of it,

be a fine representative of old-world Oblomovka, completely

tum of the third estate; these characteristics constituted a danger-

on between Oblomov and the university, and it was only with

logical makeup. Although the university in the prereform years

he exclaimed, seethed, and burned under the effect of their poet-

essential nature with a Romanticism that was completely alien to

terms of its critical attitude toward Oblomovka, there is no ques-

became very troubled when envelopes inscribed 'important' and

stopping. They no sooner finished a case when they furiously

resolved it in his own way, depending on the particular circum-

easy, satisfying ways had been overlaid with a veneer of culture,

of his existence. A bitter consciousness emerged in his timid soul

attention is directed toward depicting the youthful crisis that his

crude, uneducated individuals, Aduev by Kostiakov and Oblo-

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