No one who did not live in Russia at that time can fully comprehend what an overwhelming sensation it created.

It was like a bomb projected into the midst of cultivated society at the moment when every one was profoundly affected by the agitation which preceded the emancipation of the serfs (1861), when the literature of the day was engaged in preaching a crusade against slumberous inactivity, inertia, and stagnation.

The special point about Gontcharoff's contribution to this crusade against the order of things, and in favor of progress, was that no one could regard "Oblomoff" from the objective point of view.

Every one was compelled to treat it subjectively, apply the type of the hero to his own case, and admit that in greater or less degree he possessed some of Oblomoff's characteristics.

In this romance the gift of generalization reached its highest point.