page_title: History of Russia
section_title: Russian society in the first half of 19th century
hierarchical_section_title: History of Russia / Russian Empire (1721–1917) / Russian society in the first half of 19th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Painted portraits of writers from Russia - Pushkin, Krylov, Zhukovsky and Gnedich in Summer Garden.
context_page_description: The history of Russia begins with the histories of the East Slavs. The traditional start-date of specifically Russian history is the establishment of the Rus' state in the north in 862 ruled by Vikings. Staraya Ladoga and Novgorod became the first major cities of the new union of immigrants from Scandinavia with the Slavs and Finno-Ugrians. In 882 Prince Oleg of Novgorod seized Kiev, thereby uniting the northern and southern lands of the Eastern Slavs under one authority. The state adopted Christianity from the Byzantine Empire in 988, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Orthodox Slavic culture for the next millennium. Kievan Rus' ultimately disintegrated as a state due to the Mongol invasions in 1237–1240 along with the resulting deaths of about half the population of Rus'.
  After the 13th century, Moscow became a cultural center. The territories of the Grand Duchy of Moscow became the Tsardom of Russia in 1547. In 1721 Tsar Peter the Great renamed his state as the Russian Empire, hoping to associate it with historical and cultural achievements of ancient Rus' – in contrast to his policies oriented towards Western Europe.
context_section_description: The 1st quarter of the 19th century is the time when Russian literature becomes an independent and very striking phenomenon; this is the time when the very laws of the Russian literary language are formed. The reasons for such a rapid development of Russian literature during this period lie both in the intra-literary processes and in the socio-political life of Russian society.
  As Western Europe modernized, after 1840 the issue for Russia became one of direction. Westernizers favored imitating Western Europe while others renounced the West and called for a return of the traditions of the past. The latter path was championed by Slavophiles, who heaped scorn on the "decadent" West. The Slavophiles were opponents of bureaucracy and preferred the collectivism of the medieval Russian mir, or village community, to the individualism of the West.
  Westernizers formed an intellectual movement that deplored the backwardness of Russian culture, and looked to western Europe for intellectual leadership. They were opposed by Slavophiles who denounced the West as too materialistic and instead promoted the spiritual depth of Russian traditionalism. A forerunner of the movement was Pyotr Chaadayev (1794–1856). He exposed the cultural isolation of Russia, from the perspective of Western Europe, in his Philosophical Letters of 1831. He cast doubt on the greatness of the Russian past, and ridiculed Orthodoxy for failing to provide a sound spiritual basis for the Russian mind. He called on Russia to emulate Western Europe, especially in rational and logical thought, its progressive spirit, its leadership in science, and indeed its leadership on the path to freedom. Vissarion Belinsky (1811–1848), and Alexander Herzen (1812–1870) were prominent Westernizers.
caption: «Golden Age of Russian Poetry» writers: Pushkin, Krylov, Zhukovsky and Gnedich.
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