In this article we analyze a segment of the prodigious publicist activity of the eminent doctrinarian C. Stere: his efforts to justify and assert the aesthetic principles of the peopleist ideology. The article sketches the ideological similarities of peopleism and Russian narodnichestvo, which offered Stere a starting point for creating and developing aesthetic, artistic, social, economic and politic principles. The inventory of manifestoes and literary studies which he published in the Evenimentul literar journal allow not only evidencing the complex character of the subjects he touches upon, but also show that the peopleist mentor consistently militates in favor of modifying the criteria and principles for appreciating artworks. The programmatic ideas Stere supported allow us to notice a shift from the aesthetic towards the ethical or even sociological.