Nikolay Chernyshevsky, born on this day in 1828, was a Russian journalist, novelist, and socialist philosopher who authored the influential novel "What Is to Be Done?", an inspiration for the pamphlet by Vladimir Lenin.
While attending Saint Petersburg University, Chernyshevsky became politically radicalized, developing revolutionary, democratic, and materialist views. As a young man, he sympathized with the 1848 revolutions throughout Europe.
From 1851 to 1853, he taught Russian language and literature at the Saratov Gymnasium and openly expressed his beliefs to students, some of whom later became revolutionaries.
In 1862, he was arrested and confined in the Fortress of St. Peter and Paul, where he wrote his widely influential novel "What Is to Be Done?" The novel was an inspiration to many later Russian revolutionaries, who sought to emulate the novel's hero Rakhmetov, who was wholly dedicated to the revolution, ascetic in his habits, and highly disciplined.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky was so bothered by the political and psychological ideas expressed in the book that he wrote his "Notes from Underground" as a critical reaction against them.
Chernyshevsky was a dominant intellectual figure of the 1860s revolutionary democratic movement in Russia despite spending much of his later life in exile to Siberia, and was later praised by figures such as Karl Marx, Georgi Plekhanov, and Vladimir Lenin.
"But does it really help if a person doesn't realize what he lacks, or, if he does, he insists that he doesn't need it at all? That's an illusion, a fantasy. Human nature is stifled by reason, circumstances, and pride. It keeps silent and doesn't make itself known to one's consciousness, all the while silently doing its work of undermining life."
- Nikolay Chernyshevsky
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Funny coincidence, my copy of What Is To Be Done just arrived today.