INTRODUCTION
The last words of Virgin Soil─
'A long while Paklin remained standing before this closed door.
"Anonymous Russia!" he said at last'─
lay bare the inner meaning of the book. Anonymous Russia! It was Anonymous Russia, as Turgenev saw, that had at last arisen to menace the doors which shut out Russia from political liberty. And it is of the spontaneous formation of the Nihilist party, and of the hurried and uncertain steps it took preparatory to the serious Terrorist struggle, that Virgin Soil treats with equal skill and force. The educated advanced Russian of the seventies had begun to live an underground life : Turgenev studied this phenomenon, and
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