What was with Russia in the late 19th century? Tolstoy, Dostoevsky,

>were these writers capturing a society on the brink of collapse?
yes

>and if so, does that make them particularly relevant for contemporary readers?
yes

Russia lacks a moral noon, so to imply it has a moral twilight is to ignore Russia's history. The 19th century for Russia was the closest it came to becoming European: liberalization, egalitarianization, industrialization.

Unfortunately for the average Russian, none of this happened fast enough to appease the far Left. So, what happened in the last century in France repeated itself in Russia 120 years later.

The "Russian writers", however, were not your average Russians but the landed gentry of the era. They would see these up and comers, these industrializers, these liberals, these free-thinking peoples as amoral, wouldn't they? After all, they had everything to lose by their society being upended.

>>8397700

I half-heartedly read a few pages of Trotsky's Russian Revolution History the other day and he said something about Russia not having a merchant class, that the land owning elites simply became the factory owning elites.

Does that sound accurate, and may we still use land-owner vs. industrialist to analyze the late 19th century even if they descended from the same stock?

>>8397679
On top of this, the way it's all falling apart is very similar; we have a new batch of -isms, le edgy atheists are essentially age of enlightenment positivist shills, we have an entire board devoted to underground men...

Dark things are in our futures

>>8397707
Russia never really developed strong industry and the bourgoisie that comes with it until a few years before the start of World War One. A large part of Leninism was specifically finding a way to make Marxism work in a country with a large peasant (I.e. lumpenprole) population and one that hadn't fulfilled Marx's ideas on the decay of capitalusm

>>8397728
>peasant (I.e. lumpenprole)
The peasantry isn't the lumpenproletariat (i.e. pure criminals/vagabonds). If anything the composition of the Bolshevik party was largely lumpenproletarian initially explaining a lot of things.

>>8397679
I dunno. Just read the beginning of War and Peace and the aristrocrats were hilarious.

>What was with Russia in the late 19th century?

Russian here.

1880-1914 is the best part in Russian history. Period. Absolute European hegemony, cultural growth, introduction of mass education, abolition of slavery, rapid industrial and agricultural development, rapid development of Russia's Far East. Very liberal laws - legal prostitution, legalized nartotics, free firearms circulation. Rapid population growth.

The latter (and WW1) killed Russian Empire. Too many yesterday-slaves were quickly educated and easily converted by butthurt oppressed bolshevick jews promising them heaven on earth. What really happened is complete disaster turning Russia into African-tier country for 80 years.

Also

>
The "Russian writers", however, were not your average Russians but the landed gentry of the era.

True dat. Tolstoy had hundreds of krepostnyh (basically, slaves). Dostoyevsky wrote about human soul and than proceeded to gamble his wife's cross when he lost everything playing cards.

>Russia not having a merchant class
incorrect, there were whole merchant dynasties
often deriving from Old Believers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Believers

>Russia never really developed strong industry
Incorrect, the only problem before the revolution was some lagging behind in engines production. For example, Russia had the largest aircraft carrier fleet in the world. There were dozens of aircraft and car factories.

> beginning of War and Peace and the aristrocrats were hilarious

Please, keep in mind Tolstoy himself said it was a "historical novel". He had no real idea of what he was writing about as it happened 70 years before his book was published. Think of the average life longevity back then and there were not even any witnesses left.

>>8399285
It was because of your degenerate, liberal and egalitarian arrogance in the 1880s onwards that Russia collapsed in the 1910s

Before the Crimea War, educated liberal Russians were fairly optimistic about Russia liberalizing and becoming European

After the Crimean War, traditionalist monarchist factions became powerful, the monarchy gradually asserted its divine right side and muted its Enlightenment monarch side, and liberalism among the reformers was joined by new socialist and revolutionary impulses, while even the liberals began to feel like revolution was the only way to solve anything.

If you read Turgenev's Fathers and Sons, it's about the old polite liberal generation watching the new generation of restless, nihilistic, iconoclastic, and often angry "superfluous men" rise up, and not really recognizing them.

>>8399370
>becoming European

lel, Russia WAS the best of Europe until 1917 forming that whole territory culturally, politically, industrially, financially and scientifically

the fact that western powers managed to get rid of Russia in 1917 for a century does not mean Russians stopped being Europeans or forgot who they are and what belongs to them

>>8399464
>lel, Russia WAS the best of Europe until 1917 forming that whole territory culturally, politically, industrially, financially and scientifically

You may be right about culture and science (at least they were on a par with France or Germany in these areas), but generally, Russia was a backwards country even then. They could never translate their vast natural and human resources into a higher living standard for everybody, mainly because of their oppressive and violent nature.

File: 7315-8983-1-PB.jpg (261KB, 1024x686px) Image search: [Google]

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>>8399484
>oppressive and violent nature

nice 19th century propaganda bro

why not post some bear caricatures?

here, I'll do it for you

>>8399464
>Russia WAS the best of Europe until 1917
what the fuck happened that made you think that
this is literally wrong

>what belongs to them
vodka and a high suicide rate? what?

>>8399542
nevermind the vodka, just remembered that it's polish, but they sure do have a lot of it in russia

>>8399519
It is not propaganda mate, these features are inscribed in their mentality. I mean, the strong opress the weak, that's how things have always been in Russia. And what kind of development can you expect under such conditions?

>abolishing serfdom would improve the economic development of our country
>'LOL fuck them peasants they don't need that let them suffer'

Can anyone recommend good non-fiction about Russia from post Crimean war all the way until 1917? This thread has got me interested.