Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky[a] (24 July [O.S. 12 July] 1828 – 29 October [O.S. 17 October] 1889) was a Russian literary and social critic, journalist, novelist, democrat, and socialist philosopher, often identified as autopian socialist and leading theoretician ofRussian nihilism and theNarodniks. He was the dominant intellectual figure of the 1860s revolutionary democratic movement in Russia, despite spending much of his later life in exile toSiberia, and was later highly praised byKarl Marx,Georgi Plekhanov, andVladimir Lenin.
The son of a priest, Chernyshevsky was born inSaratov in 1828, and stayed there until 1846. He graduated at the localseminary where he learned English, French, German, Italian, Latin, Greek andOld Slavonic. It was there that he gained a love of literature,[2] and also there that he became anatheist.[3]
He was inspired by the works ofHegel,Ludwig Feuerbach andCharles Fourier and particularly the works ofVissarion Belinsky andAlexander Herzen. By the time he graduated from theSaint Petersburg University in 1850, Chernyshevsky developed revolutionary, democratic, andmaterialist views. From 1851 to 1853, he taught Russian language andliterature at the Saratov Gymnasium. He openly expressed his beliefs to students, some of whom later became revolutionaries. From 1853 to 1862, he lived inSaint Petersburg, and became the chief editor ofSovremennik (“The Contemporary”), in which he published his main literary reviews and his essays on philosophy.[4]
Chernyshevsky was sympathetic to the1848 revolutions throughout Europe. He followed the events of the time and rejoiced in the gains of the democratic and revolutionary parties.[5]
In 1855, Chernyshevsky defended his master's dissertation, "The Aesthetic Relation of Art to Reality", which contributed for the development of materialist aesthetics in Russia. Chernyshevsky believed that "What is of general interest in life -- that is the content of art" and that art should be a "textbook of life." He wrote, "Science is not ashamed to say that its aim is to understand and explain reality, and then to use its explanation for man's benefit. Let not art be ashamed to admit that its aim is ... to reproduce this precious reality and explain it for the good of mankind."[6]
In 1862, he was arrested and confined in theFortress of St. Peter and Paul, where he wrote his famous novelWhat Is to Be Done? The novel was an inspiration to many later Russian revolutionaries, who sought to emulate the novel's heroRakhmetov, who was wholly dedicated to the revolution,ascetic in his habits and ruthlessly disciplined, to the point of sleeping on a bed of nails and eating only raw steak in order to build strength for the Revolution. Among those who have referenced the novel include Lenin, who wrote apolitical pamphlet of the same name.
Chernyshevsky was a founder ofNarodism, Russianagrarian socialism, and agitated for the revolutionary overthrow of the autocracy and the creation of a socialist society based on the old peasant commune. He exercised the greatest influence upon populist youth of the 1860s and 1870s.[7]
Chernyshevsky believed that American democracy was the best aspect of American life. He welcomed the election ofAbraham Lincoln in 1860, which he believed marked a new period for "the great North American people" and that America would progress to heights "not attained sinceJefferson's time." He praised these developments: "The good repute of the North American nation is important for all nations with the rapidly growing significance of the North American states in the life of all humanity."[8]
Chernyshevsky's ideas were heavily influenced byAlexander Herzen,Vissarion Belinsky, andLudwig Andreas Feuerbach. He sawclass struggle as the means of society's forward movement and advocated for the interests of the working people. In his view, the masses were the chief maker of history. He is reputed to have used the phrase “the worse the better”, to indicate that the worse the social conditions became for the poor, the more inclined they would be to launch a revolution (though he did not originate the phrase, which predates his birth; for example, in an 1814 letterJohn Adams used it when discussing the lead-up to the American revolution[9]).
There are those arguing, in the words of Professor Joseph Frank, that “Chernyshevsky’s novelWhat Is to Be Done?, far more than Marx’sDas Kapital, supplied the emotional dynamic that eventually went to make the Russian Revolution”.[10][11]
Fyodor Dostoyevsky was enraged by what he saw as the simplicity of the political and psychological ideas expressed in the book,[12] and wroteNotes from Underground largely as a reaction against it.
Russian revolutionary and head of the Soviet governmentVladimir Lenin praised Chernyshevsky: "...he approached all the political events of his times in a revolutionary spirit and was able to exercise a revolutionary influence by advocating, in spite of all the barriers and obstacles placed in his way by the censorship, the idea of a peasant revolution, the idea of the struggle of the masses for the overthrow of all the old authorities”.[13]
Karl Marx andFriedrich Engels studied Chernyshevsky's works and called him a "great Russian scholar and critic".[14]
A number of scholars have contended thatAyn Rand, who grew up in Russia when Chernyshevsky's novel was still influential and ubiquitous, was influenced by the book.[15]
Chernyshevsky favored realist aesthetics over the idealist aesthetics which were prevalent in Russia during the nineteenth century.[16]: 22 In the 1930s, he was viewed as a revolutionary-democrat writer, and described as a major figure whose works anticipated the development ofsocialist realism.[16]: 23 His works contributed to the development of Chinese Communist cultural politics and theories, particularlyThe Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality, whichZhou Yang translated into Chinese in 1942, shortly before theYan'an Talks.[16]: 23
Vladimir Nabokov’sThe Gift has the protagonist, Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, study Chernyshevsky and write the critical biographyThe Life of Chernychevski which representsChapter Four of the novel. The publication of this work caused a literary scandal.[1]
Paperno, Irina,Chernyshevsky and the Age of Realism: A Study in the Semiotics of Behavior. Stanford:Stanford University Press, 1988.
Pereira, N.G.O.,The Thought and Teachings of N.G. Černyševskij. The Hague:Mouton, 1975.
