 With limited prospects of pursuing a military career, he spent eight years in his native haunts, teaching history and geography, first in Bobrov and then in Voronezh.No one could have predicted that within two or three decades, the provincial teacher would rise to become one of the most influential men in the empire.A major step forward in his career was in 1861, when, electrified by the Emancipation Manifesto, he relocated to Moscow, where he found himself at the periphery of a burgeoning literary scene.