Poor Folk
The Natural School movement gained ground in 1842–1845 when a group of authors – Nekrasov, Turgenev, Grigorovich, Dal, Grebenka, Panayev (joined later by Dostoyevsky and Saltykov-Shchedrin) – found themselves publishing in "Otechestvennye Zapiski", under the ideological guidance of Belinsky. Most of these writers contributed to "The Physiology of Saint Petersburg" (1845, parts 1 and 2) and the "St. Petersburg Collection" (1846), two almanacs presenting the Natural School ideology at its most quintessential. The first one consisted mostly of the so-called 'physiological sketches', a set of essays portraying the life and customs of certain types and groups of the city’s working people and minor officials, but also outcasts and marginals – a genre born in France in 1820s and imported into Russia almost wholesale. The second one was more diverse and featured "Poor Folk" by Dostoyevsky, poems by Nekrasov, Turgenev's short stories and Hertzen's political essays.