Everything about Nikolai Chernyshevsky totally explained
Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky (
July 12,
1828 -
October 17,
1889) was a
Russian revolutionary democrat,
materialist philosopher, critic, and
socialist (seen by some as a
utopian socialist). He was the leader of the revolutionary democratic movement of the
1860s, and was an influence on
Vladimir Lenin and
Emma Goldman.
The son of a priest, Chernyshevsky was born in
Saratov in 1828, and stayed there till 1846. After graduating from
Saint Petersburg University in
1850, he taught literature at a
gymnasium in Saratov. From 1853 to 1862, he lived in
Saint Petersburg, and became the chief editor of
Sovremennik ("Contemporary"), in which he published his main literary reviews and his essays on philosophy.
In
1862, he was arrested and confined in the
Fortress of St. Peter and Paul, where he wrote his famous novel
What Is to Be Done? The novel was an inspiration to many later Russian revolutionaries, who sought to emulate the novel's hero, 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 meat in order to build strength for the Revolution. Among those who took inspiration from the character was Lenin, who named a work of
political theory of the same name, and who was ascetic in his personal life (lifting weights, having little time for love, and so on). In
1862, Chernyshevsky was sentenced to
civil execution (mock execution), followed by
penal servitude (1864-72), and by exile to
Vilyuisk,
Siberia (1872-83). He died at the age of 61.
Chernyshevsky was a founder of
Narodism, Russian
populism, and agitated for the revolutionary overthrow of the autocracy and the creation of a socialist society. He thought of creating socialism based on the old peasant commune.
Chernyshevsky's ideas were heavily influenced by
Alexander Herzen,
Vissarion Belinsky, and
Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach. He saw
class 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'd be to launch a revolution.
According to Professor Emeritus of Slavic and Comparative Literature at Stanford, Joseph Frank, 'Chernyshevsky's novel
What Is to Be Done?, far more than Marx's
Capital, supplied the emotional dynamic that eventually went to make the Russian Revolution.'
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