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.
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, sometimes transliterated as Dostoyevsky, was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. Numerous literary critics regard him as one of the greatest novelists in all of world literature, as many of his works are considered highly influential masterpieces.
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.
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was a Russian novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, translator and popularizer of Russian literature in the West.
The House of the Dead is a semi-autobiographical novel published in 1860–2 in the journal Vremya by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. It has also been published in English under the titles Notes from the House of the Dead, Memoirs from the House of the Dead and Notes from a Dead House, which are more literal translations of the Russian title. The novel portrays the life of convicts in a Siberian prison camp. It is generally considered to be a fictionalised memoir; a loosely-knit collection of experiences, events and philosophical discussion based on Dostoevsky's experiences as a prisoner, organised around theme and character rather than plot. Dostoevsky spent four years in a forced-labour prison camp in Siberia following his conviction for involvement in the Petrashevsky Circle. This experience allowed him to describe with great authenticity the conditions of prison life and the characters of the convicts.
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."
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.
Fathers and Sons, literally Fathers and Children, is an 1862 novel by Ivan Turgenev, published in Moscow by Grachev & Co. It is one of the most acclaimed Russian novels of the 19th century.
Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov was a conservative Russian journalist influential during the reign of tsar Alexander III. He was a proponent of Russian nationalism, an important figure in the creation of a feeling of national identity and purpose. After the Crimean War (1856) and the Polish insurrection of 1863, Katkov abandoned his liberal Anglophile views and rejected the early reforms of Tsar Alexander II. Instead, he promoted a strong Russian state supported by an enthusiastic Russian people with a unified national outlook. His ideas were based on Western ideas, as opposed to Slavophile ideas. His literary magazine Russkii Vestnik and newspaper Moskovskie Vedomosti were successful and influential media for promoting his views.
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.
Pochvennichestvo was a late 19th-century movement in Russia that tied in closely with its contemporary ideology, Slavophilia.
The Catechism of a Revolutionary refers to a manifesto written by Russian revolutionary Sergey Nechayev between April and August 1869.
The paradox of nihilism is a family of paradoxes regarding the philosophical implications of nihilism, particularly situations contesting nihilist perspectives on the nature and extent of subjectivity within a nihilist framework. There are a number of variations of this paradox.
Evgenia Tur was a Russian writer, critic, journalist and publisher. Her birth name was Elizaveta Vasilyevna Sukhovo-Kobylina. Her full married name was Countess Elizaveta Vasilyevna Salias De Tournemire. The novelist Evgeny Salias De Tournemire was her son. The playwright Aleksandr Sukhovo-Kobylin was her brother. Her sister, Sofia, was a painter of some note.
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.
Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky (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 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.
Maxim Alexeyevich Antonovich was a Russian literary critic, essayist, memoirist, translator and philosopher.
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.
25. Терехин, Валерий. "Против течений" : утаенные русские писатели : типология "антинигилистического" романа. 3-е изд. // Терёхин В.Л. Утаённые русские писатели : [монографии, статьи]. М.: Знак, 2009. - C. 3-114 [Valeriĭ Terekhin. "Protiv techeniĭ" : utaennye russkie pisateli : tipologii͡a "antinigilisticheskogo" romana. Utaënnye russkie pisateli : [monografii, statʹi].Moskva: Znak, 2009. - C. 3-114]
