 They studied idealist philosophy grounded in the poet Nikolay Stankevich, "the bold pioneer who opened to Russian thought the vast and fertile continent of German metaphysics" (E. H. Carr).They studied Immanuel Kant, then Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.By autumn 1835, Bakunin conceived of forming a philosophical circle in his home town of Pryamukhino.