Saltykov, Miliutin, and Maikov: A Forgotten Circle

Abstract

The Petrashevskii Circle was troubled by intellectual fragmentation throughout its brief existence. Serious Fourierists, dissatisfied with the eclectic nature of the Petrashevskii debates, formed a new group that met regularly at Nikolai Kashkin's home, while certain writers, seeking a richer literary fare, established a circle that gathered at Sergei Durov's quarters. Both of these circles have received scholarly attention. ' But a third group has been generally neglected, even though it contained three of the most promising writers of the period, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Vladimir Miliutin, and Valerian Maikov.2 Saltykov needs no introduction to students of Russian history. He and Petrashevskii had met while students at the Lyceum at Tsarskoe Selo, and after graduation began visiting Petrashevskii' s home where he engaged in discussions about contemporary problems.3 Eventually the young writer withdrew from those sessions along with Miliutin and Maikov, whom he had met at Petrashevskii's house. The three formed the nucleus of a new circle. Vladimir Miliutin (1826-55) was a political economist and lecturer at St. Petersburg University where he probably encountered Petrashevskii for the first time. A descendant of a famous Serbian family that had entered Muscovite service in the seventeenth century, Miliutin's ancestors had