Chernyshevsky's What Is to Be Done?; CCWV.LIFE

In 1863, writing from the Peter and Paul Fortress where he is imprisoned, Nikolai Chernyshevsky publishes What Is to Be Done?, the novel of the new people: rational egoists who reject marriage, property, and faith as arrangements of a corrupt order. The book becomes the handbook of the Russian nihilist generation and, later, of revolutionaries who read it as a manual.

Tagged: Nihilism

The Event

Date: 1863 (exact)
Era: The Word and the Nineteenth Century; Standard periodization of the nihilist movement and idea
Location: St Petersburg; today St Petersburg, Russia
Traditions: Nihilism
Streams: Nihilism
Key figures: Nikolai Chernyshevsky
Key texts: What Is to Be Done?

Connections

Illustration for Turgenev's Fathers and Sons names the nihilist

History Event Turgenev's Fathers and Sons names the nihilist 1862 answers Turgenev's portrait with the movement's own program

Primary Sources

Chernyshevsky, Nikolai. What Is to Be Done? Sovremennik, 1863.

Secondary Sources

Crosby, Donald A. The Specter of the Absurd: Sources and Criticisms of Modern Nihilism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988.
Gillespie, Michael Allen. Nihilism Before Nietzsche. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Nishitani, Keiji. Religion and Nothingness. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.
Reginster, Bernard. The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.

Provenance: HIST-1349; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-30.