In the late 1830s Shevyrev joined Mikhail Pogodin, the editor of Moskvityanin, in opposing Belinsky and his pro-Western colleagues.

At the beginning of Alexander II's liberal reign, Shevyrev was accused by Count Bobrinsky of being a pro-government (kvas) patriot.

As a scholar, Shevyryov was best known for his studies of Old Russian religious texts (specifically, those held by the Vatican library) and translations of Dante;[2] he is regarded as Russia's first Danteologist.

He is credited as being a founder of the so-called "poetry of thought" movement which defied Pushkin-set harmony in preference to more angular and rough, but intellectually deeper verse, of which Vladimir Benediktov and Nikolay Yazykov were seen as precursors.

[2] Labeled a 'Russian nationalist' (and, by default, 'a reactionary') by influential radicals like Belinsky and Dobrolyubov, Stepan Shevyryov was forced to leave Russia in 1857.