It is extremely interesting to note that art-criticism in Russia took from the very outset (in the twenties) and quite independently of all imitation of Western Europe, the character of _philosophical æsthetics_. The revolt against pseudo-classicism had only just begun under the banner of romanticism, and the appearance of Púshkin’s _Ruslán and Ludmíla_ had just given the first practical argument in favour of the romantic rebels, when the poet VENEVÍTINOFF (see Ch. II.), soon followed by NADÉZHDIN (1804-1856) and POLEVÓY (1796-1846)--the real founder of serious journalism in Russia--laid the foundations of new art-criticism. Literary criticism, they maintained, must analyse, not only the æsthetic value of a work of art, but, above all, its leading idea--its “philosophical,”--its social meaning. Venevítinoff, whose own poetry bore such a high intellectual stamp, boldly attacked the absence of higher ideas among the Russian romantics, and wrote that “the true poets of all nations have always been philosophers who reached the highest summits of culture.” A poet who is satisfied with his own self, and does not pursue aims of general improvement, is of no use to his contemporaries.[24] Nadézhdin followed on the same lines, and boldly attacked Púshkin for his absence of higher inspiration and for producing a poetry of which the only motives were “wine and women.” He reproached our romantics with an absence of ethnographical and historic truth in their work, and the meanness of the subjects they chose in their poetry. As to Polevóy, he was so great an admirer of the poetry of Byron and Victor Hugo that he could not pardon Púshkin and Gógol the absence of higher ideas in their work. Having nothing in it that might raise men to higher ideas and actions, their work could stand no comparison whatever with the immortal creations of Shakespeare, Hugo, and Goethe. This absence of higher leading ideas in the work of Púshkin and Gógol so much impressed the last two critics that they did not even notice the immense service which these founders of Russian literature were rendering to us by introducing that sound naturalism and realism which have become since a distinctive feature of Russian art, and the need of which both Nadézhdin and Polevóy were the first to recognise. It was Byelínskiy who had to take up their work, to complete it, and to show what was the technique of really good art, and what its contents ought to be. To say that BYELÍNSKIY (1810-1848) was a very gifted art-critic would thus mean nothing. He was in reality, at a very significant moment of human evolution, a teacher and an educator of Russian society, not only in art--its value, its purport, its comprehension--but also in politics, in social questions, and in humanitarian aspirations.