graduated, however, he had begun to write, and even to publish his
literary efforts. After spending two years in Berlin, to finish his
studies, he returned to Moscow, in 1841, and there made acquaintance
with the Slavyanophils--the Aksakoffs, Khomyakoff (a military man,
chiefly known by his theological writings), and others, the leaders of
the new cult. But Turgeneff, thoroughly imbued with western ideas, did
not embrace it. He entered the government service, although there was no
necessity for his so doing, but soon left it to devote himself entirely
to literature, Byelinsky having written an enthusiastic article about a
poem which Turgeneff had published under another name. But poetry was
not Turgeneff's strong point, any more than was the drama, though he
wrote a number of plays later on, some of which have much merit, and are
still acted occasionally. He found his true path in 1846, when the
success of his first sketch from peasant life, "Khor and Kalinitch,"
encouraged him to follow it up with more of the same sort; the result
being the famous collection "The Notes (or Diary) of a Sportsman."
These, together with numerous other short stories, written between
1844-1850, won for him great and permanent literary fame.

The special strength of the "school of the '40's" consisted in its
combining in one organic and harmonious whole several currents of
literature which had hitherto flowed separately and suffered from
one-sidedness. The two chief currents were, on the one hand, the
objectivity of the Pushkin school, artistic contemplation of everything
poetical in Russian life; and on the other hand, the negatively
satirical current of naturalism, of the Gogol school, whose principal
attention was directed to the imperfections of Russian life. To these
were added, by the writers of the '40's, a social-moral movement, the
fermentation of ideas, which is visible in the educated classes of
Russian society in the '40's and '50's. As this movement was effected
under the influence of the French literature of the '30's and '40's, of
which Victor Hugo and Georges Sand were the leading exponents (whose
ideas were expressed under the form of romanticism), these writers
exercised the most influence on the Russian writers of the immediately
succeeding period. But it must be stated that their influence was purely
intellectual and moral, and not in the least artistic in character. The
influence of the French romanticists on the Russian