CHAPTER XXVI. St. Petersburg and European Influence

ST. PETERSBURG AND EUROPEAN INFLUENCE

St. Petersburg and Berlin--Big Houses--The "Lions"--Peter the Great--His Aims and Policy--The German Regime--Nationalist Reaction--French Influence--Consequent Intellectual Sterility--Influence of the Sentimental School--Hostility to Foreign Influences--A New Period of Literary Importation--Secret Societies--The Catastrophe--The Age of Nicholas--A Terrible War on Parnassus--Decline of Romanticism and Transcendentalism--Gogol--The Revolutionary Agitation of 1848--New Reaction--Conclusion.