The Hegelian craze that swept Russia during the 1830s and 1840s — Russia's "age of philosophical circles' — was part of a larger cultural proliferation: the young Hegelians of the period served as the prototype for what would later be called "the intelligentsia"; they played a leading role in the rise of Realism in Russian literature; and, ultimately a number of them would become canonized as the first heroes of the Socialist revolutionary movement. For these reasons, the story of Russia's first infatuation with Hegelian philosophy has often been retold, in bits and pieces, from a variety of perspectives. And yet, it has proven difficult to explain, to pin down, the specific, positive nature of Hegel's influence.