ABSTRACT
Andrei I. Turgenev incontestable merits as the founder of modern Russian literature, this "Peter the Great" of the modern Russian language had also done much to debase literature by writing verse on command for every imperial anniversary, birthday, and court occasion. The young men of Turgenev's generation were educated to obey, but not told why; they were also taught to rely on reason, to think in terms of social utility, and to promote their own spiritual growth and intellectual independence. Not only did friendship play a major part in the personal lives of Russian youth in the 1800s, it was the setting for their literary and cultural activities as well. Within the closed framework of seminal and dynamic small groups, they gave currency and first rank importance to those cultural and ideological elements which are contrasted to the rationalism of the Enlightenment and associated with Romanticism.
