JURIJ V. MANN THE NATURAL SCHOOL AS A STAGE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE Attempts to give an overall and comprehensive definition to different literary epochs (like Renaissance, Baroque, Classi- cism, etc.) have been made time and again from time immemo- rial. And in spite of the debatable and inconclusive nature of the results, such attempts are certainly fairly fruitful. This parti- cularly applies to what has been done with regard to Romanti- cism. Romanticism by its very essence is perceived by us as some- thing multi-faceted, fluctuating and elusive. Nevertheless, the urge to understand and describe it as an integral whole, at least within the confines of one national literature, never palls. I shall remind the reader of some classical experiences in the field: the conception of Romanticism in terms of style-an unlimited and boundless perspective which superseded the limited and rounded perspective of the Classicist pattern (F. Strichl); or in terms of the treatment of some philosophical or human concerns like love (P. Kluckhohn ~) or death (W. Rehm3); or in terms of the whole complexity of human and artistic problems (cf. the idea of the synthesis of the opposites 1 Strich Fritz., Deutsche Klassik und Romantik oder VoUendung und Unendlichkeit. Ein Vergleich. III Auflage. Mfinchen, 1928. 2 Kluckhohn Paul, Die Auffassung der Liebe in der Literatur des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts und in der Romantik. Halle, 1922. 3 Rehm Walter, Der Todesgedanke in der deutschen Dichtung vom Mittelalter bis Romantik. Halle/Saale, 1928. Neoheticon XV/1 Akaddmiai Kiad6, Budapest John Benjamins B. V., Amsterdam 90 JURIJ V. MANN suggested by P. Kluckhohn4). The latter conception proved: to be of the most lasting effect in the history of literary studies; its impact can be felt in many works on the subject (for example in the brilliant posthumous book by N. Berkovskij RomanticiSm in Germany, Leningrad, 1973). But if we depart from Romanticism and take a step towards our own age, that is, approaching 19th-century Realism in its initial stages, the picture will be entirely different-at least as far as Russian literature is concerned, i.e. the initial stage of Russian classical Realism. Although the view that this stage is represented by at least three great writers in the mature period of their creative career-Pugkin, Gogol and Lermontov-~, although this has long became a truism, we could hardly name a work of any academic value which attempts to define compre- hensive characteristic of the period as an integral literary epoch. It really seems a very difficult, if not impossible task. Appa- rently the three great currents of Russian Realism in its early stages diverged from one another to such an extent, that it is extremely difficult to embrace them with a single unifying glance, as it were. But towards the early 1840s the picture changed again. At that time a new trend appeared on the literary scene, namely the so-called "Natural school". The diversity of its representa- tives is striking (here are, for example, merely the best writers in the genre: I. Turgenev, I. Gon~arov, A. Gertzen, N. Nekrasov, F. Dostoevskij, D. Grigorovi6, A. Ostrovskij, M. Saltykov and A. Pisemskij; they are followed by a number of other interest- ing figures: V. Dal, A. Druzinin, L. Butkov, I. Panaev, V. Sollo- gub, I. Kokorev...). Nevertheless, the representatives of the "school" themselves, as well as its subsequent interpretators, proceeded from the idea of its rather close unity, which did not merely consist of personal or organizational links (although such links are certainly also very important-one Nekrasov's Kluckhohn Paul, Das Ideengut der deutschen Romantik. T/ibingen, 1941. .