Russian Soul - The Russian Soul

The Russian Soul

As the 19th century progressed, focus shifted from the landowning minority to the laboring majority. After Alexander I’s pivotal defeat of Napoleon in 1814, the Russian elite turned its attention to the peasants who had secured the victory. Around the same time and for the next several decades, serfdom was losing popular support, and more and more nobles favored abolition. Public estimation of the government fell steadily, and the simple hardworking peasant became the new embodiment of Russian character, the only hope for the fulfillment of its glorious national destiny.

In such an atmosphere did Gogol’s Dead Souls arrive, in 1842. Gogol and his contemporaries established literature as Russia’s new weapon of choice, the tool by which it could inform itself of its greatness and urge the nation to its destined position as a world leader. Gogol may not have had such grand notions, but with the help of Belinskii he paved the way for a new concept of Russian identity - the great Russian soul. As opposed to the preceding “Russian spirit,” which focused on Russia’s past, “Russian soul” was an expression of optimism. It stressed Russia’s historical youth and its ability, by following the wisdom of the peasant, to become the savior of the world. Indeed, although the concept of the Russian soul grew upon Western ideas, its advocates believed that Russia had made those ideas its own and would use them to save Europe from itself.