IB eauteous, sumptuously beauteous are the Zyrian forests in summertime, when they are all in greenery and bloom, proclaims Pavel Vladimirovich Zasodimskii (18431912) in his lengthy sketch Lesnoe tsarstvo (The Forest Kingdom).' Exclamations about the wonders of northern Russia's vast and impenetrable forests occur throughout the works of this narodnik writer. Colored by memory and feelings of both loss and belonging, these extensive passages reflect a fundamental struggle within Zasodimskii and his generation: an attraction to romantic concepts (of nature, and the supernatural) at war with an educated shestidesiatnik's awareness of a duty to maintain a sober worldview and a positivist appreciation for progress. Zasodimskii, whose works in various ways often foreground nature, and rural Russia, thus stands at the intersection of several major currents in Russian life during the second half of the nineteenth century: the battle for childhood, an emerging appreciation of Russian landscape, and an ongoing debate over forests and their significance to Russian identity.2 A prolific chronicler of peasant and provincial life, a journal editor, and a colleague or mentor of many leading progressive writers, Zasodimskii usually receives brief mention