2026/07/26

니콜라이 체르니솁스키 - 위키백과 Nikolay Chernyshevsky 무엇을 할 것인가?

니콜라이 체르니솁스키 - 위키백과, 우리 모두의 백과사전

니콜라이 체르니솁스키

위키백과, 우리 모두의 백과사전.
니콜라이 가브릴로비치 체르니솁스키
Никола́й Гаври́лович Черныше́вский
로마자 표기Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky
출생1828년 7월 24일
사망1889년 10월 17일
성별남성
국적러시아
경력비평가, 소설가, 철학자, 경제학자
소속혁명적 민주주의

니콜라이 가브릴로비치 체르니솁스키(러시아어: Никола́й Гаври́лович Черныше́вский, 1828년 7월 24일 ~ 1889년 10월 17일)는 러시아의 비평가·소설가·철학자·경제학자이다. 니콜라이 도브롤류보프와 함께 혁명적 민주주의의 대표자이다.

생애

사라토프의 사제 집안에 태어나 상트페테르부르크 대학교 졸업 후(1850) 잡지 <현대인>의 집필자가 되었으며(1854), 1856-62년에 걸쳐 동지(同志)를 배경으로 앙양된 혁명 운동의 지도자로 활약했다. <현대인>의 발행 정지처분과 함께(1862) 페트로파블롭스크 요새에 투옥된 후 ‘청년에게 끼친 유해한 영향’을 이유로 시베리아로 추방되었다. 추방이 해제된 것은 1883년이었고 이로부터 6년 후 출생지 사라토프에서 사망했다.

체르니솁스키는 <현실에 대한 예술의 미학적 관계>(1853-55), <러시아 문학에서의 고골리 시대 개관>(1856) 등의 논문으로 관념적 미학을 배척하고 현실이 예술보다 우월함을 주장하면서 사회에 대한 리얼리즘 문학의 비판 및 판결의 역할을 강조했다. 

옥중에서 쓴 장편소설 <무엇을 할 것인가>(1863)에서는 외관미보다 평등과 경제적 독립을 지향하는 신여성이나 엄격한 윤리관을 가진 혁명가를 러시아 문학에 처음으로 등장시켜, 사회주의적 생활의 실천과 전망을 묘사함으로써 급진주의적 신세대의 압도적인 인기를 모았다.

외부 링크

 이 문서에는 다음커뮤니케이션(현 카카오)에서 GFDL 또는 CC-SA 라이선스로 배포한 글로벌 세계대백과사전의 〈체르니셰프스키〉 항목을 기초로 작성된 글이 포함되어 있습니다.

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Nikolay Chernyshevsky

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nikolay Chernyshevsky
Николай Чернышевский
Born24 July 1828
Saratov, Saratov Governorate, Russian Empire
Died29 October 1889 (aged 61)
Saratov, Russian Empire
Philosophical work
Era19th-century philosophy
RegionRussian philosophy
Main interests
Notable works
What Is to Be Done?
Notable ideas
  • Rational egoism
  • Humans as chemical compounds
  • Materialist conception of aesthetics
Signature

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 a utopian socialist and leading theoretician of Russian nihilism and the Narodniks. He was the 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 highly praised by Karl Marx, Georgi Plekhanov, and Vladimir Lenin.

Biography

The son of a priest, Chernyshevsky was born in Saratov in 1828, and stayed there until 1846. He graduated at the local seminary where he learned English, French, German, Italian, Latin, Greek and Old Slavonic. It was there that he gained a love of literature,[2] and also there that he became an atheist.[3]

He was inspired by the works of Hegel, Ludwig Feuerbach and Charles Fourier and particularly the works of Vissarion Belinsky and Alexander Herzen. By the time he graduated from the Saint Petersburg University in 1850, Chernyshevsky developed revolutionary, democratic, and materialist views. From 1851 to 1853, he taught Russian language and literature at the Saratov Gymnasium. He openly expressed his beliefs to students, some of whom later became revolutionaries. From 1853 to 1862, he lived in Saint Petersburg, and became the chief editor of Sovremennik (“The Contemporary”), in which he published his main literary reviews and his essays on philosophy.[4]

Chernyshevsky was sympathetic to the 1848 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 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 one of the novel's characters Rakhmetov, 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 a political pamphlet of the same name.

In 1862, Chernyshevsky was sentenced to civil execution (mock execution), followed by penal servitude (1864–1872), and by exile to Vilyuisk, Siberia (1872–1883). He died at the age of 61.[citation needed]

Ideas and influence

Chernyshevsky honoured on a 1953 stamp

Chernyshevsky was a founder of Narodism, Russian agrarian 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 of Abraham 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 since Jefferson'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 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 would be to launch a revolution (though he did not originate the phrase, which predates his birth; for example, in an 1814 letter John 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 novel What Is to Be Done?, far more than Marx’s Das 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 wrote Notes from Underground largely as a reaction against it.

Russian revolutionary and head of the Soviet government Vladimir 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 and Friedrich Engels studied Chernyshevsky's works and called him a "great Russian scholar and critic".[14]

A number of scholars have contended that Ayn 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 of socialist realism.[16]: 23  His works contributed to the development of Chinese Communist cultural politics and theories, particularly The Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality, which Zhou Yang translated into Chinese in 1942, shortly before the Yan'an Talks.[16]: 23 

Works

Novels

  • What Is to Be Done? (1863)
  • A Story Within A Story (1863) (unfinished)
  • Prologue: A Novel for the Beginning of the 1860s (1870) (unfinished)

Philosophy

  • Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality (1855)
  • The Nature of Human Knowledge (1855)
  • Critique of Philosophical Prejudices Against Communal Ownership (1858)
  • The Anthropological Principle in Philosophy (1860)

Literary criticism

  • Essays on the Gogol Period in Russian Literature (1856)

Notes

  1.  Russian: Николай Гаврилович Чернышевский, IPA: [nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɡɐˈvrʲiləvʲit͡ɕ t͡ɕɪrnɨˈʂɛfskʲɪj]

References

  1.  "Chernyshevskii, Nikolai Gavrilovich (1828–1889)". Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 11 August 2020 – via Encyclopedia.com.
  2.  Ana Siljak, Angel of Vengeance, page 57
  3.  Ana Siljak, Angel of Vengeance, page 58
  4.  Hecht, David (1945). "Chernyshevsky and American Influence on Russia". Science & Society. 9 (4): 321. doi:10.1177/003682374500900402. ISSN 0036-8237. JSTOR 40399722.
  5.  Hecht, 323
  6.  Scanlan, James P. (1985). "Nikolaj Chernyshevsky and the Philosophy of Realism in Nineteenth-Century Russian Aesthetics". Studies in Soviet Thought. 30 (1): 7. doi:10.1007/BF01045127. ISSN 0039-3797. JSTOR 20100022. S2CID 145336102.
  7.  Е. Водовозова, На заре жизни, М. -Л., 1934, с. 87.
  8.  Hecht, 326
  9.  Ellis, Joseph (2001). Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 84. ISBN 0-393-31133-3.
  10.  Frank, Joseph (1990). Through the Russian Prism: Essays on Literature and Culture. Princeton University Press. p. 187. ISBN 0691014566.
  11.  Amis, Martin (2002). Koba the Dread. Miramax. p. 27. ISBN 0-7868-6876-7.
  12.  Jane Missner Basrstow Dostoevsky Versus Chernyshevsky in College Literature V, 1. Winter 1978.
  13.  "Lenin: 'The Peasant Reform' and the Proletarian-Peasant Revolution". www.marxists.org. Retrieved 2 June 2019.
  14.  Offord, Derek (23 December 2004). The Russian Revolutionary Movement in the 1880s. Cambridge University Press. p. 122. ISBN 9780521892193.
  15.  Weiner, Adam (11 December 2016). "The Most Politically Dangerous Book You've Never Heard Of". POLITICO Magazine. Retrieved 2 May 2019.
  16.  Kindler, Benjamin (2025). Writing to the Rhythm of Labor: Cultural Politics of the Chinese Revolution, 1942-1976. New York City, NY: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-21932-7.

Further reading

  • Vladimir Nabokov’s The Gift has the protagonist, Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, study Chernyshevsky and write the critical biography The Life of Chernychevski which represents Chapter 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.

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무엇을 할 것인가?

위키백과, 우리 모두의 백과사전.

《무엇을 할 것인가?》(러시아어: Что Делать?)는 러시아의 철학자, 언론인, 문학평론가 니콜라이 체르니솁스키가 쓴 1863년 소설이다. 하나의 혁명적 선전으로 당대의 급진적인 젊은 독자들과 후대의 혁명가들에게 지침이 되었던 작품이다. 《무엇을 할 것인가?》는 베라 파블로브나라는 젊고 똑똑한 중산층 계급의 여자가 잡계급(разночинцы) 지식인 출신의 로푸호프와 그의 친구 키르사노프를 만나 지적, 사회적, 혁명적으로 성숙해 가는 성장소설로, 꿈같은 이상향을 만들기 위해 무엇을 어떻게 해야 하는지를 구체적으로 가르쳐 준다.

내용

누구나 열심히 일하고 사이좋게 이익을 분배해서 모두가 잘살게 되는 사회. 모두가 자기가 하고 싶은 일을 하며 영원한 봄과 여름, 그리고 영원한 기쁨을 누리는 사회. 이런 꿈같은 이상향을 만들기 위해서는 어떻게 해야 하는지를 구체적으로 가르쳐 주는 작품이다. 레닌이 러시아 혁명을 결심하게 만든 혁명가의 필독서다.

인간 본성이 선한지 악한지에 대한 논의는 아주 오래전부터 계속되어 왔다. 서양에서는 소크라테스나 루소가, 동양에서는 공자나 맹자가 인간의 본성은 지극히 선하며, 그 선은 타고나는 것이라 주장했다. 한마디로 인간은 생득적인 착한 성품을 지니고 태어나며, 인간이 악해지는 이유는 환경 때문이라는 것이다. 이와 똑같은 사고를 체르니솁스키의 작품 《무엇을 할 것인가?》에서도 발견할 수 있다. 체르니솁스키는 인간 본성이 원래 선하며, 인간이 사악한 행위를 하는 것은 사회가 그에게 자신의 욕구와 능력을 만족시킬 기회를 주지 않았기 때문이라고 말한다. 따라서 사회가 개혁이 되어 배부르고 따스한 좋은 환경을 제공해 준다면 모두가 자신의 선한 본성으로 돌아가리라고 믿었다. 그는 낮은 차원에 머물고 있는 일반적인 민중이 쉽게 따라 할 수 있고, 그래서 ‘새로운 사람’이 될 수 있는 매뉴얼을 아주 자세하게 예를 들며 소개하기 위해 이 글을 썼다.

《무엇을 할 것인가?》는 베라 파블로브나라는 젊고 똑똑한 중산층 계급의 여자가 잡계급 지식인 출신의 로푸호프와 그의 친구 키르사노프를 만나 지적, 사회적, 혁명적으로 성숙해 가는 성장소설이다. 이 작품에서 그는 1860년대의 세대들에게 다가올 미래에 있을 유토피아적인 청사진을 보여 주었을 뿐만 아니라, 그 미래를 지상에 실현하기 위해 ‘지금’ 무엇을 할 것인가와 또 그 ‘무엇’이란 단기 목표를 어떻게 하면 성취할 수 있을 것인가를 등장인물인 ‘새로운 사람들’의 예를 통해 구체적으로 제시하고 있다. 또한 어떻게 살아야 할 것인가, 각각의 상황에서 무엇을 할 것인가 등의 커다란 목표에 대한 해답뿐만 아니라, 식생활, 의생활, 결혼 생활, 삼각관계, 이익 분배 등 개인적·사회적 차원의 제반 문제에 관한 해답이 상세히 제시되어 있다.

러시아 혁명의 시작부터 소비에트 정권이 붕괴할 때까지, 체르니솁스키는 혁명과 소비에트 정권의 상징이자 우상이었고, 1860년대 과격한 잡계급 출신의 인텔리겐치아들뿐만 아니라, 그 후의 모든 혁명가들과 소비에트 러시아의 엘리트들에게 찬양과 감탄의 대상이었다. 그들에게 《무엇을 할 것인가?》는 예술 작품이라기보다는 하나의 혁명적 선전이었고, 목표와 목표 달성을 위한 행동 지침서였다. 그것이 작가 체르니솁스키의 의도였으며, 당대 급진적인 젊은 독자들과 후대의 혁명가들도 작품 속 등장인물들을 자신의 모범으로 삼아 그들의 행동 방식과 사고방식을 모방하고자 노력했다.

18세기 이후 러시아 문학계를 주도한 귀족 작가들이 보여 주었던 ‘잉여 인간’의 전통을 확립한 카람진의 《카람진 단편집》, 이러한 ‘잉여 인간’에 반박하여 ‘새로운 사람’들의 이상적인 모습을 제시한 체르니솁스키의 《무엇을 할 것인가?》, 그리고 이 《무엇을 할 것인가?》의 이상주의를 신랄하게 비판한 도스토옙스키의 《지하생활자의 수기》을 함께 비교해서 읽어 보는 것도 색다른 즐거움이 될 것이다.

외부 링크

 본 문서에는 지식을만드는지식에서 CC-BY-SA 3.0으로 배포한 책 소개글 중 "원서발췌 무엇을 할 것인가?" 의 소개글을 기초로 작성된 내용이 포함되어 있습니다.

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What Is to Be Done? (novel)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
What Is to Be Done?
1905 title page
AuthorNikolai Chernyshevsky
Original titleЧто дѣлать?
LanguageRussian
GenrePhilosophical fiction, political fiction
Publication date1863
Publication placeRussian Empire
Published in English
1886
Media typePrint (hardback and paperback)

What Is to Be Done? (Russian: Что делать?, romanized: Chto delat'?) is an 1863 novel written by the Russian author Nikolay Chernyshevsky, written in response to Fathers and Sons (1862) by Ivan Turgenev. The chief character is Viéra Pavlovna, a woman who escapes the control of her family and an arranged marriage to seek economic independence.

Background

When he wrote the novel, Chernyshevsky was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress of Saint Petersburg and was soon to spend years in Siberia. He asked for and received permission to write the novel in prison. The authorities passed the manuscript along to the newspaper Sovremennik, his former employer, which published it in installments.

Plot

What Is to Be Done? begins on July 23, 1856, with an unknown man checking into a hotel in Saint Petersburg near the Moskovsky Railway Station asking for a meal, a bed, and to be awakened in the morning. He then locks the door and is not heard from for the rest of the night. The waiter knocks on the man's door the following day to wake him but gets no response and eventually contacts the police. The policemen finally force the door only to find a room empty except for a note linking the man to Liteyny Bridge.

The police inform the butler that at that bridge, at half past two that morning, a lone gunshot was heard, and it was thought to be a suicide. But no body could be found, leading some to conclude it was a suicide, others a drunkard, and others a practical joker. The story then flashes back to the same morning, in a dacha in the Kamenny Islands (Stone Islands), where the protagonist Viéra Pavlovna is sewing a dress that she plans to wear to her maid, Masha's, wedding.

Masha presents her with a letter that makes Viéra turn pale and weep. A young man enters and reads the letter, which states "I have disturbed your peace of mind. I leave these scenes. Don't grieve; I love you both so much that I am very happy at my decision. Farewell." Viéra accuses the young man of having blood on his hands, then admits that she herself murdered for the sake of the young man. She tells the young man that they must part, and that she will be moving to Tver or Novgorod.

The novel in the main revolves around the life of Viéra Pavlovna Rozalskaïa (often referred to as Viérotchka, Russian for Little Viéra). It begins in the year 1852 with Viéra living on Gorokhovaya Street with her tyrannical mother, Marya Alekséyevna; scheming father, Pavel Konstantinuitch Rozalsky; young brother, Feódor; and the cook, Matrióna. Viéra's parents intend to marry her off to a hedonistic young military officer, Mikhaïl Ivanuitch.

She is saved from this fate when she meets the medical student, Dmitri Sergéitch Lopukhóf, who has been tutoring her younger brother, Feódor. Lopukhóf and Viéra began meeting privately to avoid her mother's suspicion and to discuss Socialism, gender equality, science, and ways to save her from the arranged marriage. Over time they develop feelings for each another, and because of this and of Lopukhóf's desire to save her from what she describes as her "cellar" at home, they risk a lawsuit from Viéra's parents by secretly eloping. They move into an apartment together on Vasilyevsky Island.

Viéra and Lopukhóf intend to live in accordance with their beliefs and draw up a system of elaborate rules, such as not being able to enter each other's sleeping quarters without express permission, so as to give each other the utmost equality, privacy, freedom, and independence. Viéra aspires not only to have economic independence for herself but also to save other young women from the fate she almost faced. She becomes a seamstress and starts a commune of seamstresses with other young women, many of whose stories are related in the novel. The commune evolves to include shared living arrangements, profit-sharing, and classes provided by educated individuals such as Lopukhóf and his best friend and classmate Alexander Kirsanov.

The commune thrives, leading to the formation of a second. But in the meantime, Kirsanov has fallen in love with Viéra, and she has come to realize that she does not love Lopukhóf as much as she thought she did. Lopukhóf, whose ardour for his wife remains undimmed, recognises this too and tries to manipulate events in the background before eventually discussing the problem with a distraught Viéra.

In secret, Lopukhóf disappears and fakes his own suicide, as described in the preface. This leaves Kirsanov and Viéra free to marry one another. Eventually, the famed Rakhmetov character reveals Lopukhóf's faked suicide to Viéra. Though satisfied with her work with the seamstress commune, Viéra begins to study medicine to become a doctor and break the public prejudice against women joining such a profession.

The book's final section focuses on Kirsanov and the patient he is treating. This young woman is suffering partly because of a lack of freedom to marry as she pleases. Kirsanov not only solves this problem but helps her to realize that the man she wishes to marry is a licentious and lackluster partner. The woman eventually meets and falls in love with Charles Beaumont, a man who claims to have been an American industrialist partially raised in Russia. Charles steers the young woman towards Viéra's circle, which she quickly joins. Finally, Charles and the woman marry. Viéra meets Charles for the first time and realizes that Charles is Lopukhóf returned from the U.S. The Kirsanovs and "Beaumonts" eventually move in together in a ménage à quatre.

Utopianism in the novel

The novel advocates the creation of small socialist cooperatives based on the Russian peasant commune, but ones that are oriented toward industrial production. The author promoted the idea that the intellectual's duty was to educate and lead the laboring masses in Russia along a path to socialism that is predicted to bypass capitalism. Despite his minor role, Rakhmetov, one of the characters in the novel, became an emblem of the philosophical materialism and nobility of Russian radicalism. Through one character's dream, the novel also expresses a society gaining "eternal joy" of an earthly kind.

The work itself can be analyzed as a work of literary utopia[1] through its alternating narrative style, wherein Chernyshevsky makes use of metaliterary techniques that implicate the reader through the author's interruptions and direct addresses to the reader. The reader's complicity with the author, who is presumably the narrator, further implicates them in the political act of engaging with Chernyshevsky's ideology.[2][3]

Viéra Pavlovna's dreams

Viéra Pavlovna has four dreams throughout the course of the novel. Viéra's dreams ultimately work to transform her own desires into action. Viéra Pavlovna's dreams follow in the Russian literary tradition of the prophetic dream, having a predictive relationship from sleep to waking life.[4][5]

In her first dream, Viéra's "dream-guide" (a version of herself) introduces herself as "the bride of your [Viéra's] bridegroom," solidifying Viéra's intention to marry Lopukhóf and free herself from her cellar. In her dream, Viéra continues to free other young girls from their own cellars. Viéra does so in real life by forming her sewing co-operative and residential commune that affords both herself and other young girls the ability to become financially independent and self-sufficient.[6][7][4]

Viéra Pavlovna witnesses a theoretical conversation between Lopukhóf and Kirsanov about the philosophical constituents of dirt in her second dream. While this dream does not appear to directly spur Viéra into revolutionary action, the conversation is an allegory for Chernyshevsky's belief that socioeconomic conditions shape individuals.[8] Wagner says of this dream:

Chernyshevsky uses Liebig's theories regarding the fertility of different types of soil... to expound his own idea that socioeconomic conditions shape an individual's character, and that therefore the revolutionary transformation of these conditions will ensure social justice and prosperity by fostering appropriate personality traits.[9]

Viéra Pavlovna's third dream exposes her doubts within her marriage to Lopukhóf, forming the foundation for Viéra's formation of a variety of relationships later in the novel that do not conform to the monogamous and heterosexual social norms.[4][10]

Ultimately, Viéra's fourth dream constructs an agrarian utopia. Viéra's sees a crystal palace that is a technological and scientific marvel. The utopia in Viéra's dream is reminiscent of Charles Fourier's phalanstères.[1] Viéra's dream-guide champions equal rights between all women and men as the foundation for this utopian society.[11][4] It is here that Viéra recognizes herself as her dream-guide, thus positioning utopian potential in the everyday through such actions and ideologies as Viéra Pavlovna's.[4]

Influence

The novel is known for inspiring several generations of activists and revolutionaries, particularly in Russia including populists, nihilists, and Marxists. Likewise, Vladimir Lenin, Georgi Plekhanov, Peter Kropotkin, Alexandra Kollontai, Rosa Luxemburg, and Swedish writer August Strindberg[12] were all highly impressed with the book. Emma Goldman, a Russian-born anarchist, describes her intent to found a sewing cooperative based on Viéra Pavlovna's model found in the novel.[13][14]

The novel came to be officially regarded as a Russian classic in the Soviet period, as Chernyshevsky was celebrated as a forefather of the revolution.[15][16] According to Joseph Frank, "Chernyshevsky's novel, far more than Marx's Capital, supplied the emotional dynamic that eventually went to make the Russian Revolution."[17]

The novel was controversial upon its publishing and has provoked mixed responses. Fyodor Dostoevsky mocked the utilitarianism and utopianism of the novel in his 1864 novella Notes from Underground, as well as in his 1872 novel Demons, as did Vladimir Nabokov in his final novel in Russian, The Gift. Leo Tolstoy wrote his own What Is to Be Done?, published in 1886, based on his own ideas of moral responsibility.[18] Vladimir Lenin named his 1902 pamphlet What Is to Be Done? due to the influence the novel had on him.[7]

The novel's influence spread beyond the Russian radical tradition and Russian radical intellectuals. For example, it is referenced by Tony Kushner multiple times in his play Slavs!, by André Gide's Les caves du Vatican (Lafcadio's Adventures) and, some have argued, indirectly by Ayn Rand.[19]

In 2024, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping invoked the novel during the 16th BRICS summit.[20]

References

  1.  Fokkema, Douwe (2011), "Chernyshevsky's What Is to Be Done? and Dostoevsky's Dystopian Foresight", Perfect Worlds, Utopian Fiction in China and the West, Amsterdam University Press, pp. 211–232, ISBN 978-90-8964-350-6, JSTOR j.ctt46mwnv.13, retrieved 2022-03-10
  2.  Wagner, William; Katz, Michael (2014-12-03). "Introduction: Chernyshevsky, What Is to Be Done? and the Russian Intelligentsia". What Is to Be Done?. Cornell University Press. p. 30. doi:10.7591/9780801471599. ISBN 978-0-8014-7159-9.
  3.  Morson, Gary Saul (1982). "The Boundaries of Genre: Dostoevsky's Diary of a Writer and the Traditions of Literary Utopia". Poetics Today. 3 (1): 198. doi:10.2307/1772228. ISSN 0333-5372. JSTOR 1772228.
  4.  Stuhr-Rommereim, Helen; Jarris, Mari (2020). "Nikolai Chernyshevsky's What Is to Be Done? and the Prehistory of International Marxist Feminism". Feminist German Studies. 36 (1): 166–192. doi:10.1353/fgs.2020.0012. ISSN 2578-5192. S2CID 235084738.
  5.  Visson, Lynn (1992). "Moments of truth: Dreams in Russian literature". Dreaming. 2 (3): 181–189. doi:10.1037/h0094359.
  6.  Chernyshevsky, Nikolai; Katz, Michael R. (2014-12-03). What Is to Be Done?. Cornell University Press. pp. 130–131. doi:10.7591/9780801471599. ISBN 978-0-8014-7159-9.
  7.  Paperno, Irina (1988). Chernyshevsky and the age of realism : a study in the semiotics of behavior. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-1453-3. OCLC 1014952245.
  8.  Chernyshevsky, Nikolai; Katz, Michael R. (2014-12-03). What Is to Be Done?. Cornell University Press. pp. 180–182. doi:10.7591/9780801471599. ISBN 978-0-8014-7159-9.
  9.  Chernyshevsky, Nikolai; Katz, Michael R.; Wagner, William (2014-12-03). What Is to Be Done?. Cornell University Press. p. 181. doi:10.7591/9780801471599. ISBN 978-0-8014-7159-9.
  10.  Chernyshevsky, Nikolai; Katz, Michael R. (2014-12-03). What Is to Be Done?. Cornell University Press. pp. 429–431. doi:10.7591/9780801471599. ISBN 978-0-8014-7159-9.
  11.  Chernyshevsky, Nikolai; Katz, Michael R. (2014-12-03). What Is to Be Done?. Cornell University Press. p. 368. doi:10.7591/9780801471599. ISBN 978-0-8014-7159-9.
  12.  Myrdal, Jan. 1986. Ord och avsikt.
  13.  Rudahl, Sharon (2007). Buhle, Paul (ed.). A dangerous woman : the graphic biography of Emma Goldman. The New Press. ISBN 978-1-59558-064-1. OCLC 123539320.
  14.  Drozd, Andrew Michael (2001). Chernyshevskii's What is to be done? : a reevaluation. Northwestern University Press. ISBN 0-8101-1739-8. OCLC 247993113.
  15.  Chernets, L. V. (1990). "Н. Г.: Биобиблиографическая справка". Русские писатели. Биобиблиографический словарь. Том 2. М--Я. Под редакцией П. А. Николаева. М., "Просвещение". Retrieved 1 March 2012.
  16.  Plekhanov, Georgi (1910). "Н.Г.Чернышевский". Библиотека научного социализма. Т.4. Retrieved 1 March 2012.
  17.  Amis, Martin (2002). Koba the Dread. Miramax. p. 27. ISBN 0-7868-6876-7.
  18.  "What Is to Be Done?".
  19.  Sciabarra, Chris Matthew (1 November 2010). Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical. Penn State Press. p. 28. ISBN 978-0-271-04236-7.
  20.  Garnaut, John; Chetwin, Sam (2024-12-15). "This Unreadable Russian Novel Drives Xi's Struggle Against America". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2024-12-15. Retrieved 2024-12-15.

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