ČERNYŠEVSKIJ, NIKOLAJ GAVRILOVÍĆ. - Russian revolutionary, known as a man of letters, publicist, and economist, b. at Saratov in 1828, d. there in 1889. He contributed to the principal Russian journals of his time: Otelestvennye Zapiski (Patriotic Annals) and Sovremennik (The Contemporary). Accused of having organized disturbances of a political and social nature, he was sentenced to fourteen years of forced labour: the penalty was subsequently reduced by half.
Considerable fame was brought him by the novel Cto delat' (What Is to Be Done?), verbose and devoid of artistic value, but greatly appreciated by revolutionary youth, since it rested upon materialist doctrines and approved free love. C., together with Dobroljubov and Pisarev, was a determined adherent of an aesthetic founded on utilitarianism and of a literature closely connected with “living problems,” that is, with social questions. Significant are his Essays on Political Economy, in which, not without reason, elements concurrent with Marxist thought have been discerned. Lenin regarded C., in various respects, as a precursor of the Bolshevik Revolution; and he undoubtedly was such by virtue of some of his principles concerning the class struggle and of his uncompromising and polemical anti-religious attitude.