n Ufa, and was very well educated by his
mother, at schools, and at Kazan University. His talents first revealed
themselves in 1847, in his "Notes on Angling," and his "Diary of a
Sportsman with a Gun," in the Orenburg Government (1852). Most famous of
all, and most delightful, are the companion volumes, "A Family Chronicle
and Souvenirs" (1856) and "The Childhood's Years of Bagroff's Grandson"
(1858). In these Russian descriptive language made a great stride in
advance, even after Pushkin and Gogol; and as a limner of landscape, he
has no equal in Russian literature. The most noteworthy point about his
work is that there is not a trace of creative fancy or invention; he
describes reality, takes everything straight from life, and describes
it with amazing faithfulness and artistic harmony. He was the first
Russian writer to look on Russian life from a positive instead of from a
negative point of view.[19]

Pushkin's period had been important, not only in rendering Russian
literature national, but still more so in bringing literature into close
connection with life and its interests. This had in turn led to a love
of reading and of literature all over the country, and had developed
latent talents. This love spread to classes hitherto unaffected by it;
and among the talents it thus developed, none was more thoroughly
independent than that of Alexei Vasilievitch Koltzoff (1809-1842), who
was so original, so wholly unique in his genius, that he cannot rightly
be assigned to any class, and still stands as an isolated phenomenon. He
was the son of a merchant of Voronezh, who was possessed of considerable
means, and he spent the greater part of his youth on the steppes,
helping his father, a drover, who supplied tallow-factories. After being
taught to read and write by a theological student, young Koltzoff was
sent to the district school for four months, after which his education
was regarded as finished, because he knew as much as the people about
him, and because no more was required for business purposes. But the lad
acquired a strong love of reading, and devoted himself to such
literature as he could procure, popular fairy-tales, the "Thousand and
One Nights," and so forth. He was sixteen years of age when Dmitrieff's
works fell into his hands, and inspired him with a desire to imitate
them, and to "make songs" himself. As yet he did not understand the
difference between poetry and popular songs, and did not read verses,
b