Belinsky's foreword to the epochal miscellany The Physiology of Petersburg (1845) offers a vital perspective on Russian imperial consciousness. In approving the book's aesthetic of descriptive naturalism as a new mode for exposing urban life's particularities, the critic naturally concentrated on Russia's capital cities. But in orienting his discussion, he looked much farther afield to urge Russian writers to clarify their national identity by investigating the whole, far-flung empire. Among other regions, he cited the Caucasus, the Crimea and Siberia as places whose geographical and cultural features were not yet sufficiently known to the Russian readership. Most of all, he thought “travelogues, accounts of trips, essays, stories and descriptions” should determine the affiliations and differences between all the various peoples: which ones were most “kindred” to the “purely Russian element”, and which were “utterly alien?” In casting a rhetorical eye over these vast expanses, Belinsky no doubt showed a “readiness to enjoy the experience of empire”. Without questioning the tsarist state's right to rule all the “other” nationalities, he looked forward to exploring the empire's “unknown” corners, observing exotic populations, defining them and assigning them cultural ranks in relation to his metropole. Such an attitude surely was shared by many of Russia's armchair travelers who proved so receptive to the literary Caucasus.

However, the cultural texture of this reading experience was much richer than the imperial posture alone can suggest. A great deal of the complexity lay in the belief that some of the empire's regions and ethnic groups were more kindred to Russians than others.