Nikolay Chernyshevsky
N.G. Chernyshevsky, in full Nikolay
Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky (b. July 12
[July 24, New Style], 1828, Saratov,
Russia—d. Oct. 17 [Oct. 29], 1889,
Saratov), radical journalist and
politician who greatly influenced the
young Russian intelligentsia through his
classic work, What Is to Be Done?
(1863).
Son of a poor priest, Chernyshevsky in
1854 joined the staff of the review
Sovremennik (“Contemporary”). Though he
focused on social and economic evils and
tried to expound predictable laws of
economic change, he followed his fellow
journalist Vissarion Belinsky and the
English utilitarians in preaching a
highly purified egoism as the most
natural and desirable mainspring of
human conduct. Landowners accused him of
stirring up class hatred; and, although
the extent to which he was actively
subversive is a matter of controversy,
he was arrested in 1862 and, after two
years’ imprisonment, was exiled to
Siberia, where he remained until 1883.
While in prison he wrote his didactic
novel Shto Delat? (1863; A Vital
Question or What Is to Be Done?). He was
a Westernizer who opposed nationalist
Slavophiles. In the U.S.S.R. he was
considered by many to be a forerunner of
Vladimir Lenin.
