Arzamas Society

Russian literary circle that flourished in 1815 - 18 and was formed for the semiserious purpose of ridiculing the conservative �Lovers of the Russian Word,� a group dominated by the philologist Aleksandr S. Shishkov, who wished to keep the modern Russian language firmly tied to Old Church Slavonic. The Arzamas circle included the poets Vasily A. Zhukovsky, Konstantin Batyushkov