I860 that thirty years ago the Russia of the future existed exclusively among a few boys just emerging from childhood; they were the legatees of universal science and of the true popular Russian tradition. Yet the period I825-I855 proved highly significant in the history of Russian social and political thought. The repressions that followed the Decembrist uprising could not stop all intellectual activities. In St. Petersburg, in Moscow, and in the provinces there came into existence informal groups interested in philosophical, scientific, social, and political questions, and united, to quote Herzen, by a profound feeling of alienation from official Russia. The influence of these groups, which included practically everyone who counted in Russia's intellectual life, was entirely out of proportion to their size. Although there was no coordinated program, and the members of these coteries changed their allegiance freely and at times took opposite sides in the passionate war of ideas, a fairly clear pattern of intellectual evolution emerges in retrospect from the confused clash of opinions. As an escape from the unpalatable realities of the police regime of Nicholas I, and as a protest against the rationalism and empiricism of French eighteenth century philosophers, Russian intellectuals of the I820's and 1836's endeavored to lose themselves in the glittering generalities of Schelling's idealistic and romantic philosophy. Schelling was first introduced to the Russian reading public early in the nineteenth century but it was not until a quarter of a century later that he won there a number of ardent followers. From Schelling the seekers after truth turned to Kant, then to Fichte, and finally to Hegel whose influence proved powerful and lasting, partly because the interpretations or misinterpretations of his views lent themselves equally well to the support of either radical or conservative doctrines.