Tchernyshévskiy and “The Contemporary”

The most prominent among political writers in Russia itself has undoubtedly been TCHERNYSHÉVSKIY (1828–1889), whose name is indissolubly connected with that of the review, Sovreménnik (The Contemporary). The influence which this review exercised on public opinion in the years of the abolition of serfdom ( 1857–62) was equal to that of Hérzen’s Bell, and this influence was mainly due to Tchernyshévskiy, and partly to the critic Dobrolúboff.

Tchernyshévskiy was born in Southeastern Russia, at Sarátoff — his father being a well educated and respected priest of the cathedral — and his early education he received, first at home, and next in the Sarátoff seminary. He left the seminary, however, in 1844, and two years later entered the philological department of the St. Petersburg University.

The quantity of work which Tchernyshévskiy performed during his life, and the immensity of knowledge which he acquired in various branches, was simply stupendous. He began his literary career by works on philology and literary criticism; and he wrote in this last branch three remarkable works, The Æsthetical Relations between Art and Reality, Sketches of the Gógol period, and Lessing and his Time, in which he developed a whole theory of aesthetics and literary criticism. His main work, however, was accomplished during the four years, 1858–62, when he wrote in The Contemporary, exclusively on political and economical matters. These were the years of the abolition of serfdom, and opinion, both in the public at large and in the Government spheres, was quite unsettled even as to the leading principles which should be followed in accomplishing it. The two main questions were: should the liberated serfs receive the land which they were cultivating for themselves while they were serfs, and if so — on what conditions? And next — should the village community institutions be maintained and the land held, as of old, in common — the village community becoming in this case the basis for the future self-government institutions? All the best men of Russia were in favour of an answer in the affirmative to both these questions, and even in the higher spheres opinion went the same way; but all the reactionists and “esclavagist” serf-owners of the old school bitterly opposed this view. They wrote memoirs upon memoirs and addressed them to the Emperor and the Emancipation Committees, and it was necessary, of course, to analyse their arguments and to produce weighty historical and economical proofs against them. In this struggle Tchernyshévskiy, who was, of course, as was Hérzen’s Bell, with the advanced party, supported it with all the powers of his great intelligence, his wide erudition, and his formidable capacity for work; and if this party carried the day and finally converted Alexander II. and the official leaders of the Emancipation Committees to its views, it was certainly to a great extent owing to the energy of Tchernyshévskiy and his friends.

It must also be said that in this struggle The Contemporary and The Bell found a strong support in two advanced political writers from the Slavophile camp: KÓSHELEFF (1806–1883) and YÚRIY SAMARIN (1819–1876). The former had advocated, since 1847 — both in writing and in practise — the liberation of the serfs “with the land,” the maintenance of the village community, and peasant self-government, and now Kósheleff and Samarin, both influential landlords, energetically supported these ideas in the Emancipation Committees, while Tchernyshévskly fought for them in The Contemporary and in his Letters without an Address (written apparently to Alexander II and published only later on in Switzerland).

No less a service did Tchernyshévskiy render to Russian Society by educating it in economical matters and in the history of modern times. In this respect he acted with a wonderful pedagogical talent. He translated Mill’s Political Economy, and wrote Notes to it, in a socialistic sense; moreover, in a series of articles, like Capital and Labour, Economical Activity and the State, he did his best to spread sound economic ideas. In the domain of history he did the same, both in a series of translations and in a number of original articles upon the struggle of parties in modern France.

In 1863 Tchernyshévskiy was arrested, and while he was kept in the fortress he wrote a remarkable novel, What is to be Done? From the artistic point of view this novel leaves much to be desired; but for the Russian youth of the times it was a revelation, and it became a programme. Questions of marriage, and separation after marriage in case such a separation becomes necessary, agitated Russian society in those years. To ignore such questions was absolutely impossible. And Tchernyshévskiy discussed them in his novel, in describing the relations between his heroine, Vyéra Pávlovna, her husband Lopukhóff and the young doctor with whom she fell in love after her marriage — indicating the only solutions which perfect honesty and straightforward common sense could approve in such a case. At the same time he preached — in veiled words, which were, however, perfectly well understood — Fourierism, and depicted in a most attractive form the communistic associations of, of producers. He also showed in his novel what true “Nihilists” were, and in what they differed from Turguéneff’s Bazároff. No novel of Turguéneff and no writings of Tolstóy or any other writer have ever had such a wide and deep influence upon Russian Society as this novel had. It became the watchword of Young Russia, and the influence of the ideas it propagated has never ceased to be apparent since.

In 1864 Tchernyshévskiy was exiled to hard labour in Siberia, for the political and socialist propaganda which he had been making; and for fear that he might escape from Transbaikália he was soon transported to a very secluded spot in the far North of Eastern Siberia — Vilúisk — where he was kept till 1883. Then only was he allowed to return to Russia and to settle at Astrakhan. His health, however, was already quite broken. Nevertheless, he undertook the translation of the Universal History of Weber, to which he wrote long addenda, and he had translated twelve volumes of it when death overtook him in 1889. Storms of polemics have raged over his grave, although his name, even yet, cannot be pronounced, nor his ideas discussed, in the Russian Press. No other man has been so much hated by his political adversaries as Tchernyshévskiy. But even these are bound to recognise now the great services he rendered to Russia during the emancipation of the serfs, and his immense educational influence.