Tolstoy's poems were appearing in virtually all the major Russian magazines of the time, regardless of their ideological inclinations. Yet, in 1857 his relationship with the leftist "Sovremennik" group became strained. Tolstoy drifted towards the Slavophiles and their "Russkaya Beseda" magazine, becoming a close friend of Ivan Aksakov and Aleksey Khomyakov, but this liaison was short-lived too. In the 1860s he found himself in a strange position of being a highly popular author, criticized fiercely both from the left and from the right. As to the reasons for this, A.K. Tolstoy was never in doubt. In an autobiographical letter to Angelo de Gubernatis he wrote: