of the not too distant estate belonging to a certain N.N. Tregu-
bov, an ex-naval officer who had settled down in Simbirsk
as a tenant of Mme Goncharova and almost as a member of her
family. Ivan--his favourite--was thus exposed from an early
age to a double set of impressions and, therefore, to a double
set of values. One of them was conditioned by the pleasantly
indolent manor-tradition with its atmosphere of the past, while
the other came from the enterprizing mercantile bourgeoisie at
a time when the old patriarchal system of Russia--a system
based on serfdom--was already showing the cracks and portents
of its forthcoming doom.

This double strain was characteristic of Goncharov throughout
the whole of his life. He loved the stabilized forms of existence
which hailed from the past--loved them with a hidden ro-
mantic attachment. At the same time there was in him the sober
bourgeois who saw clearly the need of a more modern, more
active type of life, and who looked with scepticism at his own
romantic leanings. His head, if not his heart, was on the side
of the various up-to-date factors which he accepted as a mark of
progress. But while evaluating progress above all in terms of
activities such as were known in the West, he yet remained
rooted in the pleasantly somnolent existence typical of the old
patriarchal Russian families, especially of those living in such
remote corners as Simbirsk.

The conflict between these two trends (the eternal conflict
between the old and the new) found an original expression in
Goncharov and in his work. He saw in it a vital dilemma,
which he actually turned into the Leitmotif of his novels. This
he did against the background of Russia's belated transition
from a feudal or semi-feudal economic system to a more modern
bourgeois-capitalist pattern of existence. Goncharov's novels
can claim to be an epic of this transition, or--if you prefer--of
this struggle. For it was a struggle which, in a way, was taking
place also in the author's own consciousness. Divided between
is allegiance to the past and his sympathies with the dawning
new era, he embodied in his writings certain features of this
process with a skill which takes his literary work beyond a
mere local or a mere temporary significance. But in order to
understand the deeper aspects of Goncharov the writer we
must first mention something about Goncharov the man. In
this case, at any rate, knowing one helps us to appreciate the
other.

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