[20] Literally, "Old-fashioned Landed Proprietors," who would, as a matter of course, belong to the gentry, or "nobility," as the Russian term is. This title is often translated, "Old-fashioned Farmers." [21] This expression has become proverbial in Russia, and is used to repress any one who becomes unduly excited. CHAPTER IX SEVENTH PERIOD: GONTCHAROFF. GRIGOROVITCH. TURGENEFF. Under the direct influence of Byelinsky's criticism, and of the highly artistic types created by Gogol, a new generation of Russian writers sprang up, as has already been stated--the writers of the '40's: Grigorovitch, Gontcharoff, Turgeneff, Ostrovsky, Nekrasoff, Dostoevsky, Count L. N. Tolstoy, and many others. With several of these we can deal but briefly, for while they stand high in the esteem of Russians, they are not accessible in English translations. Despite the numerous points which these writers of the '40's possessed in common, and which bound them together in one "school," this community of interests did not prevent each one of them having his own definite individuality; his own conception of the world, ideals, character, and creative processes; his own literary physiognomy, so to speak, which did not in the least resemble the physiognomy of his fellow-writers, but presented a complete opposition to them in some respects. Perhaps the one who stands most conspicuously apart from the rest in this way is Ivan Alexandrovitch Gontcharoff (1812-1890). He was the son of a wealthy landed proprietor in the southeastern government of Simbirsk, pictures of which district are reproduced in his most famous novel, "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