Egoism is a philosophy concerned with the role of the self, or ego, as the motivation and goal of one's own action. Different theories of egoism encompass a range of disparate ideas and can generally be categorized into descriptive or normative forms. That is, they may be interested in either describing that people do act in self-interest or prescribing that they should. Other definitions of egoism may instead emphasise action according to one's will rather than one's self-interest, and furthermore posit that this is a truer sense of egoism.
Nihilism is a family of views within philosophy that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as knowledge, morality, or meaning. The term was popularized by Ivan Turgenev and more specifically by his character Bazarov in the novel Fathers and Sons.
Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov was a Russian novelist, short-story writer, playwright, and journalist, who also wrote under the pseudonym M. Stebnitsky. Praised for his unique writing style and innovative experiments in form, and held in high esteem by Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov and Maxim Gorky among others, Leskov is credited with creating a comprehensive picture of contemporary Russian society using mostly short literary forms. His major works include Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1865), The Cathedral Folk (1872), The Enchanted Wanderer (1873), and "The Tale of Cross-eyed Lefty from Tula and the Steel Flea" (1881).
Demons is a novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky, first published in the journal The Russian Messenger in 1871–72. It is considered one of the four masterworks written by Dostoevsky after his return from Siberian exile, along with Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880). Demons is a social and political satire, a psychological drama, and large-scale tragedy. Joyce Carol Oates has described it as "Dostoevsky's most confused and violent novel, and his most satisfactorily 'tragic' work." According to Ronald Hingley, it is Dostoevsky's "greatest onslaught on Nihilism", and "one of humanity's most impressive achievements—perhaps even its supreme achievement—in the art of prose fiction." Many great writers including Joseph Brodsky, Marek Hłasko, Sergei Dovlatov have lauded it as the greatest novel ever written.
Dmitry Ivanovich Pisarev was a Russian literary critic and philosopher who was a central figure of Russian nihilism. He is noted as a forerunner of Nietzschean philosophy, and for the impact his advocacy of liberation movements and natural science had on Russian history.
The Russian nihilist movement was a philosophical, cultural, and revolutionary movement in the Russian Empire during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, from which the broader philosophy of nihilism originated. In Russian, the word nigilizm came to represent the movement's unremitting attacks on morality, religion, and traditional society. Even as it was yet unnamed, the movement arose from a generation of young radicals disillusioned with the social reformers of the past, and from a growing divide between the old aristocratic intellectuals and the new radical intelligentsia.
Rational egoism is the principle that an action is rational if and only if it maximizes one's self-interest. As such, it is considered a normative form of egoism, though historically has been associated with both positive and normative forms. In its strong form, rational egoism holds that to not pursue one's own interest is unequivocally irrational. Its weaker form, however, holds that while it is rational to pursue self-interest, failing to pursue self-interest is not always irrational.
The Catechism of a Revolutionary is a manifesto written by Russian revolutionary Sergey Nechayev between April and August 1869.
No Way Out is an anti-nihilist novel by Nikolai Leskov, published in 1864 under the pseudonym M.Stebnitsky in Biblioteka Dlya Chteniya. The original epigraph has been later removed. During the author’s lifetime the novel was re-issued five times: in 1865, 1867, 1879, 1887 and 1889.
At Daggers Drawn is an anti-nihilist novel by Nikolai Leskov, first published in 1870 and 1871 by Russky Vestnik. In November 1871, the novel was released in book form. The novel's original text was severely edited by the magazine's staff.
Vasily Grigorievich Avseenko was a literary critic, writer and journalist from the Russian Empire.
Valerian Fedorovich Pereverzev was a Soviet literary scholar and critic. He and his associates published the 1928 collection Literary Criticism, a controversial key text in what was called the "Pereverzev school."
Grazhdanin was a Russian conservative political and literary magazine published in Petersburg in 1872–1914. The magazine was founded by Prince Vladimir Meshchersky. It came out weekly or two times a week, and daily in 1887–1914. Grazhdanin exerted some influence on policies of the Russian government. It adhered to principals of monarchism and opposed liberal press and revolutionary movements. Fyodor Dostoyevsky was the magazine's chief editor from the early 1873 to April 1874. Throughout this magazine's existence, people like Konstantin Pobedonostsev, Nikolay Strakhov, Aleksey Pisemsky, Nikolai Leskov, Fyodor Tyutchev, Apollon Maykov, Yakov Polonsky, Aleksey Apukhtin, Vasily Nemirovich-Danchenko and others published their works on its pages.
Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky 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 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.
Neglected People is an 1865 novel by Nikolai Leskov.
In the Vortex is a novel by Alexey Pisemsky written in 1870 and first published in Beseda magazine's Nos. 1-6, 1871, issues. Initially dismissed by critics of the democratic camp as just another 'anti-nihilist' novel aimed at discrediting the revolutionary movement, later it came to be recognized as one of Pisemsky's most sophisticated works.
Viktor Petrovich Klyushnikov was a Russian writer, editor and journalist, whose debut novel, Marevo, was considered by contemporary Russian critics to be one of the four 'great anti-nihilist' novels of the time, alongside Troubled Seas by Alexey Pisemsky, No Way Out by Nikolai Leskov and Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Both Ivan Turgenev and Alexey K. Tolstoy reacted positively, hailing the arrival of the original, even if erratic literary talent, "who [was playing] with his gift in acrobatic fashion," according to Tolstoy.
Zarya was a monthly literary and political Russian magazine published in Saint Petersburg in 1869-1872.
Varfolomey Alexandrovich Zaytsev was a Russian literary critic, historian, journalist, and publicist. He was a leading figure of the Russian nihilist movement in literary publication of his time.
