"Oblomoff."
This made its appearance in 1858. No one who did not live in Russia at
that time can fully comprehend what an overwhelming sensation it
created. It was like a bomb projected into the midst of cultivated
society at the moment when every one was profoundly affected by the
agitation which preceded the emancipation of the serfs (1861), when the
literature of the day was engaged in preaching a crusade against
slumberous inactivity, inertia, and stagnation. The special point about
Gontcharoff's contribution to this crusade against the order of things,
and in favor of progress, was that no one could regard "Oblomoff" from
the objective point of view. Every one was compelled to treat it
subjectively, apply the type of the hero to his own case, and admit that
in greater or less degree he possessed some of Oblomoff's
characteristics. In this romance the gift of generalization reached its
highest point. Oblomoff not only represented the type of the landed
proprietor, as developed by the institution of serfdom, but the racial
type, which comprised the traits common to Russians in general, without
regard to their social rank, class, or vocation. In fact, so typical was
this character that it furnished a new word to the language,
"oblomovshtchina,"--the state of being like Oblomoff. Oblomoff carried
the national indolence--"_khalatnost_," or dressing-gown laziness, the
Russians call it in general--to such a degree that he not only was
unable to do anything, but he was not able even to enjoy himself. Added
to this, he was afflicted with aristocratic enervation of his faculties,
unhealthy timidity, incapacity to take the smallest energetic effort,
dove-like gentleness, and tenderness of soul, rendering him utterly
incapable of defending his own interests or happiness in the slightest
degree. And these characteristics were recognized as appertaining to
Russians in general, even to those who had never owned serfs, and thus
the type presented by Oblomoff may be said to be not only racial, but to
a certain extent universal--one of the immortal types, like Don Quixote,
Don Juan, Hamlet, and the like. The chief female character in the book,
Olga, can hardly be called the heroine; she appears too briefly for
that. But she is admitted to be a fine portrait of the Russian woman as
she was about to become, not as she then existed. Gontcharoff's "An
Every-day Story" is also celebrated; equally so is his "The Ravine," a
very distressing