Natural School

The label Natural School was coined by Faddey Bulgarin, who initially used it in a derogatory sense, in his February 26, 1846, essay in Severnaya Ptchela criticizing young writers, followers of Gogol, for producing the kind of prose that was imitating real life while lacking in artistry and inspiration.[2] Immediately, it got picked up by Vissarion Belinsky to be used positively, in relation to what he saw as the new social realism movement, pioneered by Gogol and now taking hold among the new generation of authors. Analyzing the trend in his essay "On a Russian novel and novels by Gogol" he traced the roots of it down to 1835. The Natural School doctrine's general idea, as Belinsky saw it, was that literature should "mirror the reality." In this respect it was very much the development of the French Age of Enlightenment ideas.[1]

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.[1]

"The Preface" to The Physiology of Saint Petersburg written by Belinsky is seen in retrospect as a Natural School manifest. In it the critic wrote of literature's social mission, its "duty not just to reflect life but explore it… examine things, but also pass judgement."[3] "To take away from Art its right to serve social interests means to debase it, stripping off it live thought, that is, it's true power," the critic insisted.[4] Belinsky continued to lay out the theoretical basis for his Natural School doctrine in his essays "Replying Moskvityanin", "Reviewing the Russian Literature of 1846" and "Reviewing the Russian Literature of 1847".[1]

Detractors accused the Natural School authors of negativism, tendentiousness, plagiarizing French authors and the lack of patriotism. Dramatist and actor Pyotr Karatygin ridiculed them in his 1847 play Natural School. Despite all that, in 1848 (according to Belinsky again) the Natural School became the dominant trend in the Russian literature. After Belinsky's death the term Natural School got banned by the authorities. In the 1850s it resurfaced under the moniker "the Gogol tradition", like in "Sketches from the Gogol period of Russian Literature" by Chernyshevsky.[1]