Nikolay Chernyshevsky

Biography

Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky (1828–1889) was a Russian revolutionary democrat, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist who profoundly influenced Russian radical thought and the revolutionary movement. Born in Saratov, the son of a priest, Chernyshevsky studied at St. Petersburg University and became a leading figure among Russian radical intellectuals of the 1860s. As a literary critic for the journal Sovremennik (The Contemporary), he advocated for literature as a vehicle for social change, developing a materialist aesthetic that influenced generations of Russian writers and thinkers. His utopian novel What Is to Be Done? (1863), written in prison, became the most influential Russian novel of the 19th century among revolutionaries—more so even than anything by Tolstoy or Dostoevsky. The novel’s depiction of the "new people" living by rational self-interest and its vision of a cooperative utopian society inspired Lenin, who titled his own famous pamphlet after it. Chernyshevsky spent twenty years in Siberian exile (1864–1883) for his political activities. His influence on the Russian revolutionary movement was immense, and Lenin called him "the greatest and most talented" representative of utopian socialism.