.
1851-1853 - teaching at the Saratov gymnasium.
1853 - the beginning of work in the journal Sovremennik.
1855, May 10 - defense of the dissertation "Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality".
1862, July 7 - arrest and imprisonment in the Alekseevsky pavelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress.
1862-1863 - creation of the novel "What is to be done?".
1864, May 19 - civil execution on Mytninskaya Square in St. Petersburg.
May 20, 1864 - sent to Katorgy in Eastern Siberia.
1889, October 17 (29) - died in Saratov.

Essay on life and work

The rise of a critic.

In his writings, he clearly formulated the positions of the revolutionary-democratic movement, which attracted the close attention of the III Branch. As N. G. Chernyshevsky foresaw, he was not only arrested, but also excluded from active political struggle for many years. Imprisonment in the Peter and Paul Fortress, civil execution, long years in prison broke his health. In 1883, a man arrived in Astrakhan from Yakutia, who no longer had
strength not only for this struggle, but also for creativity.

Literature. 10 cells : textbook for general education. institutions / T. F. Kurdyumova, S. A. Leonov, O. E. Maryina and others; ed. T. F. Kurdyumova. M. : Bustard, 2007.

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Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky was the founder of a "solid materialistic tradition" in Russia. Hence the special significance of his philosophical views, set forth in a few articles and expressed in one way or another in the totality of his journalistic works. Note that philosophical materialism was known in Russia before Chernyshevsky. The ideas of the Enlighteners of the 18th century left a deep mark on the history of Russian social thought. Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky (1828-1889) rightfully occupies one of the first places among the glorious figures of the Russian revolutionary-democratic movement.

Chernyshevsky's activities were distinguished by their unusual versatility. He was a militant materialist philosopher and dialectician, he was also an original historian, sociologist, leading economist, critic, and outstanding innovator in aesthetics and literature. He embodied the best features of the Russian people - a clear mind, a steadfast character, a powerful desire for freedom. His life is an example of great civic courage, selfless service to the people. Chernyshevsky devoted his entire life to the struggle for the liberation of the people from feudal-serf slavery, for the revolutionary-democratic transformation of Russia. He devoted his life to what can be characterized by Herzen's words about the Decembrists, "to awaken the younger generation to a new life and to purify children born in an environment of butchery and servility." With the writings of Chernyshevsky, philosophical thought in Russia significantly expanded its sphere of influence, moving from a limited circle of scientists to the pages of a widespread journal, declaring itself in Sovremennik with every article by Chernyshevsky, even if it was not at all devoted to special philosophical questions. Chernyshevsky wrote very little specifically about philosophy, but all his scientific and journalistic activity was permeated with it. Chernyshevsky, the philosopher, followed the same path as his predecessors, Belinsky and Herzen, had gone before. Philosophy for Chernyshevsky was not an abstract theory, but a tool for changing Russian reality. Chernyshevsky's materialism and his dialectic served as the theoretical substantiation of the political program of revolutionary democracy.

1. MAIN STAGES OF N.G. CHERNYSHEVSKY.

Chernyshevsky Nikolai Gavrilovich (1828 - 1889) - publicist, literary critic, prose writer, economist, philosopher, revolutionary democrat.

Born in Saratov in the family of a priest Gavrila Ivanovich Chernyshevsky (1793-1861). He studied at home under the guidance of his father, a versatile educated person. In 1842 he entered the Saratov Theological Seminary, where he used his time mainly for self-education: he studied languages, history, geography, the theory of literature, and Russian grammar. Without graduating from the seminary, in 1846 he entered St. Petersburg University at the Department of General Literature of the Faculty of Philosophy. Along with the Russian poet N. A. Nekrasov and literary critic N. A. Dobrolyubov, he headed the editorial office of the Sovremennik magazine. In the work of Chernyshevsky, a change in the way of life in Russia is recorded and a new morality of the younger generation is indicated, further disclosed in the journalism of D. I. Pisarev. Together with A. I. Herzen, he was the founder of populism ...

During the years of study at the university (1846-1850), the foundations of the worldview were developed. The conviction that a revolution in Russia was necessary by 1850 was combined with the soberness of historical thinking: “Here is my way of thinking about Russia: an irresistible expectation of an imminent revolution and a thirst for it, although I know that for a long time, maybe a very long time, nothing will come of it the good news is that, perhaps, oppression will only increase for a long time, and so on. - what needs? .. peaceful, quiet development is impossible.

Chernyshevsky tried his hand at prose (the story of Lily and Goethe, the story of Josephine, Theory and Practice, The Cut Piece). Having left the university as a candidate, after a short work as a tutor in the Second Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg, he served as a senior teacher of literature at the Saratov gymnasium (1851-1853), where he spoke in the class "such things that smell like hard labor."

Returning to St. Petersburg in May 1853, Chernyshevsky taught at the Second Cadet Corps, while preparing for the exams for a master's degree, and working on his dissertation "The Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality." The debate on the dissertation presented to Professor Nikitenko in the fall of 1853 took place on May 10, 1855 and was a manifestation of materialistic ideas in aesthetics, irritating the university authorities. The dissertation was officially approved in January 1859. In parallel, there was a journal work, which began in the summer of 1853 with reviews in the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski.

But from the spring of 1855, Chernyshevsky, who retired, was engaged in journal work for N.A. Nekrasov's Sovremennik. Collaboration in this journal (1859-1861) fell on a period of social upsurge associated with the preparation of the peasant reform. Under the leadership of Chernyshevsky and Nekrasov, and later Dobrolyubov, the revolutionary-democratic direction of the journal was determined.

Since 1854, Chernyshevsky led the department of criticism and bibliography in Sovremennik. At the end of 1857, he handed it over to Dobrolyubov and concentrated mainly on political, economic, and philosophical topics. Convinced of the predatory nature of the forthcoming reform, Chernyshevsky boycotted the pre-reform hype; upon the publication of the manifesto on February 19, 1861, Sovremennik did not directly respond to it. In Letters Without an Address, written after the reform and actually addressed to Alexander II (published abroad in 1874), Chernyshevsky accused the autocratic-bureaucratic regime of robbing the peasants. Counting on a peasant revolution, the Sovremennik circle, headed by Chernyshevsky, resorted to illegal forms of struggle. Chernyshevsky wrote a revolutionary proclamation "Bow to the lordly peasants from well-wishers."

In an atmosphere of growing post-reform reaction, the attention of the III Division was increasingly attracted by the activities of Chernyshevsky. Since the autumn of 1861, he was under police surveillance. But Chernyshevsky was a skilled conspirator; nothing suspicious was found in his papers. In June 1862, the publication of Sovremennik was banned for eight months.

On July 7, 1862, Chernyshevsky was arrested. The reason for the arrest was a letter from Herzen and Ogarev intercepted at the border, in which it was proposed to publish Sovremennik in London or Geneva. On the same day, Chernyshevsky became a prisoner of the Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he stayed until the verdict was passed - a civil execution, which took place on May 19, 1864 on Mytninskaya Square. He was deprived of all the rights of the estate and sentenced to 14 years of hard labor in the mines, with the subsequent settlement in Siberia, Alexander II reduced the term of hard labor to 7 years. The trial in the Chernyshevsky case dragged on for a very long time due to the lack of direct evidence.

In the fortress, Chernyshevsky turned to artistic creativity. Here, from December 14, 1862 to April 4, 1863, the novel What Is to Be Done? From stories about new people. He was followed by the remaining unfinished story "Alferyev" (1863) and the novel "Tales in the story" (1863), "Small stories" (1864). Saw the light only novel "What to do?".

In May 1864, Chernyshevsky was sent under escort to Siberia, where he was first at the mine, and from September 1865 - in the prison of the Alexander Plant.

Hard labor, which expired in 1871, turned out to be the threshold to the worst test - a settlement in Yakutia, in the city of Vilyuysk, where the prison was the best building, and the climate turned out to be disastrous.

Here Chernyshevsky was the only exile and could communicate only with the gendarmes and the local Yakut population; Correspondence was difficult, and often deliberately delayed. Only in 1883, under Alexander III, Chernyshevsky was allowed to move to Astrakhan. The drastic change in climate greatly damaged his health.

The years of fortress, penal servitude and exile (1862-1883) did not lead to the oblivion of the name and works of Chernyshevsky - his fame as a thinker and revolutionary grew. Upon his arrival in Astrakhan, Chernyshevsky hoped to return to active literary activity, but the publication of his works, albeit under a pseudonym, was difficult.

In June 1889, Chernyshevsky received permission to return to his homeland, to Saratov. He made big plans, despite his rapidly deteriorating health. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage and was buried in Saratov.

In the versatile heritage of Chernyshevsky, works on aesthetics, literary criticism, and artistic creativity occupy an important place. In all these areas, he was an innovator, raising controversy to this day. To Chernyshevsky, his own words about Gogol as a writer from among those “for whom love requires the same mood of the soul as they are, because their activity is service to a certain direction of moral aspirations,” are applicable.

In the novel "What to do? From stories about new people” Chernyshevsky continued the theme of a new public figure, discovered by Turgenev in “Fathers and Sons”, mostly from raznochintsy, who replaced the type of “superfluous person”.

The romantic pathos of the work lies in the striving for the socialist ideal, the future, when the type of "new man" will become "the common nature of all people." The prototype of the future is also the personal relations of the “new people”, who resolve conflicts on the basis of the humane theory of “calculation of benefits”, and their work activity. These detailed areas of life of the "new people" are correlated with a hidden, "Aesopian" plot, the main character of which is the professional revolutionary Rakhmetov.

The themes of love, labor, revolution are organically linked in the novel, the characters of which profess "reasonable egoism", stimulating the moral development of the individual. The realistic principle of typification is more consistently sustained in Rakhmetov, whose stern courage was dictated by the conditions of the revolutionary struggle of the early 1960s. The call for a bright and beautiful future, Chernyshevsky's historical optimism, and the major finale are combined in the novel with an awareness of the tragic fate of his "new people": "... a few more years, perhaps not years, but months, and they will curse them, and they will chased off the stage, shoved aside, moved."

The publication of the novel caused a storm of criticism. Against the background of Chernyshevsky's numerous accusations of immorality and other things, the article by R.R.Strakhov "Happy People" stands out for its seriousness. Recognizing the author's vitality and "tension of inspiration", the "organic" critic challenged the rationalism and optimism of the "new people" and the absence of deep conflicts between them.

M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, expressing sympathy with the general idea of ​​the novel, noted that in its implementation the author could not avoid some arbitrary regulation of details.

And N.G. Chernyshevsky believed: “... Only those areas of literature achieve brilliant development that arise under the influence of strong and living ideas that satisfy the urgent needs of the era. Each century has its own historical cause, its own special aspirations. The life and glory of our time are two aspirations, closely related and complementing one another: humanity and concern for the improvement of human life.

It is known that Chernyshevsky imagined a "positively" moral person as a "complete" person, integral and harmonious in which the root of all movements - both selfish and disinterested - is one and the same, namely "love for oneself." However, the "theory of rational egoism" did not prevent Chernyshevsky from believing in the almost miraculous power of the individual and ardently sympathize with all those who are "oppressed by the conditions of life."

Positions of positivism and belief in science were also shared by representatives of populism, radicalism and socialism. Along with the problem of man, the issue of attitude to religion also invariably worried the enlightened Russian society of those years. The trend towards the secularization of society, that is, isolation from religion and the Church, which is already in a hurry to be replaced by the idea of ​​socialism, replacing the religious worldview in the minds of people, becomes most acutely tangible and painful when a shift towards democratization takes place in Russian life (the liberation of the peasants in 1861 year), and the various currents of secularism become bolder and more active. However, even taking the forms of theomachism, these movements were associated with intense spiritual quests, with the need to satisfy the religious demands of the masses. Back in 1848, the 20-year-old Chernyshevsky wrote in his diary: “What if we have to wait for a new religion?<…>I would be very sorry to part with Jesus Christ, who is so good, so sweet in his personality, loving humanity. 1 But already a few years later, on the pages of his novel, he indulges in sublime dreams about the coming Kingdom of Goodness and Justice, where there is no religion, except for religiously colored love for man ...

Chernyshevsky was not only the ideological leader of the raznochintsy intelligentsia, he made an invaluable contribution to the moral capital of the era. Contemporaries unanimously note his high moral qualities. He endured hard labor and exile with heroic humility. This preacher of practical use and popularizer of the theory of "reasonable selfishness" fought for freedom, but did not want freedom for himself, because he did not want to be reproached for self-interest.

The range of Chernyshevsky's interests was extremely wide: he studied philosophy, natural sciences, political economy, history, and knew European languages. However, the cultural level of Chernyshevsky, like that of most raznochintsy, was much lower than the level of culture and education of the idealists of the 40s. Such are the inevitable costs of the process of democratization at all times! However, Chernyshevsky's like-minded people forgave him both the lack of literary talent and the bad language of his journalistic and philosophical articles, because this was not the main thing. His thought, clothed in a ponderous form, made the best minds think not only in Russia, but also in enlightened Europe. Marx specifically took up the Russian language in order to read Chernyshevsky's works on economics.

Raznochintsy of the 60s - fighters for universal happiness, inspired by the ideas of Chernyshevsky, were atheists and at the same time ascetics, they deliberately abandoned hopes for the other world, and at the same time chose hardships, prisons, persecution and death in earthly life. In the eyes of radical youth, these people favorably differed from those hypocritical Christians who firmly held on to earthly goods and humbly counted on rewards in the future life. Chernyshevsky was by no means a mere mouthpiece of their ideas, who from his quiet comfortable office inspired them to a sacrificial feat, he was one of them. Even though he erred in his public career, it was still the way of the cross, because he gave his life for all the unfortunate and destitute. Vladimir Nabokov, having sharply negatively assessed his literary and ideological heritage, ended the chapter devoted to Chernyshevsky (it is part of the novel The Gift) with the following poetic lines:

What will your distant great-grandson say about you,

then glorifying the past, then simply scolding?

That your life was terrible? What's different

could it be happiness? Why didn't you expect another?

That your feat was not accomplished in vain - dry labor

in the poetry of good in passing turning

and the white brow of the shackle crowning

one airy and closed line?

The tragedy of Chernyshevsky and his generation lies in the main contradiction that split the consciousness of the "new people": they were dreamers and idealists, but they wanted to believe only in "good"; they were inspired by faith in the Ideal, but at the same time they were ready to reduce all human feelings to elementary physiology. They lacked a culture of thinking, but they despised it, considering thought that was not connected with practical use to be meaningless. They denied any religious faith, while they themselves firmly believed in their utopian dreams and, like Chernyshevsky, sacrificed themselves to the future, denying the very concept of sacrifice...

Summarizing all of the above, one can undoubtedly admit that the dominant driving forces of Russian social thought of this period are, nevertheless, religious idealism on the one hand and materialistic biologism on the other. The role of positivism (in the Russian sense of the word) in this "great confrontation" seems to be quite unambiguous. Positivism acts here as a kind of mechanism or tool for cognition and explanation from the “scientific” point of view of everything that exists between the world of spirit and matter.

2 PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS OF I.G. CHERNYSHEVSKY

At the time when Chernyshevsky began his conscious activity, advanced social thought was still under the influence of Hegel's philosophy. Paying tribute to the depth and noble character of this doctrine, Chernyshevsky considered it outdated and incapable of showing a reliable path to the freedom and happiness of the people. Hegel's philosophy was a fantastic reflection of the great historical drama of the old society. She recognized the suffering of mankind as a normal retribution for all the achievements of culture and progress. Hegel ridiculed the sentimental illusions, the sugary utopias of men, that called society back to the "state of nature," that imaginary primeval idyll in the bosom of nature. Powerless good wishes! History is not at all like the peaceful existence of Philemon and Baucis. Development requires sacrifice, civilization arises from the ruins of many local and national cultures, wealth gives birth to poverty, factories and manufactories build their success on the poverty of a large class of people. Peoples strive for happiness, but the epochs of happiness in history are empty pages. This is what Hegel teaches, and for him the satisfaction of human needs cannot be the goal of history - it protects only the interests of development with its universal law. Every stop on this path, every satisfaction with material well-being becomes a betrayal of the world spirit, a seductive obstacle placed by nature, materiality. Therefore, the more beautifully life flourishes, the more surely the fatal law of world development condemns it to death:

Beauty blooms only in song, And freedom - in the realm of dreams.

Chernyshevsky believed that much was true in Hegel's philosophy only "in the form of dark forebodings", however, suppressed by the idealistic worldview of the brilliant philosopher.

Chernyshevsky emphasized the duality of Hegelian philosophy, seeing this as one of its most important flaws, and noted the contradiction between its strong principles and narrow conclusions. Speaking of the colossal genius of Hegel, calling him a great thinker, Chernyshevsky criticizes him, pointing out that Hegel's truth appears in the most general, abstract, indefinite outlines. But Chernyshevsky recognizes Hegel's merit in the search for truth - the supreme goal of thinking. Whatever the truth is, it is better than anything that is not true. The thinker's duty is not to retreat before any results of his discoveries.

Truth must sacrifice absolutely everything; it is the source of all blessings, just as delusion is the source of "every evil." And Chernyshevsky points to the great philosophical merit of Hegel - his dialectical method, "amazingly strong dialectics."

In the history of knowledge, Chernyshevsky assigns a large place to Hegel's philosophy and speaks of its importance in the transition "from abstract science to the science of life."

Chernyshevsky pointed out that for Russian thought, Hegelian philosophy served as a transition from fruitless scholastic philosophies to "a bright view of literature and life." Hegel's philosophy, according to Chernyshevsky, affirmed in the thought that truth is higher and dearer than anything in the world, that a lie is criminal. She approved the desire to strictly investigate concepts and phenomena, instilled "a deep consciousness that reality is worthy of the most careful study," for truth is the fruit and result of a rigorous comprehensive study of reality. Along with this, Chernyshevsky considered Hegel's philosophy already outdated. Science has evolved further.

Dissatisfied with the philosophical system of Hegel, Chernyshevsky turned to the works of the most prominent philosopher of that time, Ludwig Feuerbach.

Chernyshevsky was a very educated person, he studied the works of many philosophers, but he called only Feuerbach his teacher.

When Chernyshevsky wrote his first major scientific work, his dissertation on aesthetics, he was already a well-established Feuerbachian thinker in the field of philosophy, although in his dissertation he never once mentioned the name of Feuerbach, then banned in Russia.

At the beginning of 1849, the Russian Fourierist-Petrashevite Khanykov gave Chernyshevsky, for acquaintance, the famous Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity. Where Feuerbach, with his philosophy, argued that nature exists independently of human thinking and is the basis on which people grow up with their consciousness, and that higher beings created by man's religious fantasy are only fantastic reflections of man's own essence.

After reading The Essence of Christianity, Chernyshevsky noted in his diary that he liked it "for its nobility, directness, frankness, sharpness." He learned about the essence of man, as Feuerbach understood it, in the spirit of natural-scientific materialism, he learned that the perfect man is characterized by reason, will, thought, heart, love, this absolute in Feuerbach, the essence of man as a man and the purpose of his being. A true being loves, thinks, wants. The highest law is love for a person.

Philosophy must proceed not from some absolute idea, but from nature, living reality. Nature, being is the subject of knowledge, and thinking is derivative. Nature is primary, ideas are its creations, the function of the human brain. These were real revelations for the young Chernyshevsky. He found what he was looking for. He was especially struck by the main idea, which seemed to be completely fair - that "man has always imagined a human God according to his own concepts of himself."

In 1877, Chernyshevsky wrote from his Siberian exile to his sons: “If you want to have an idea of ​​what human nature is in my opinion, learn this from the only thinker of our century who, in my opinion, had absolutely correct ideas about things. This is Ludwig Feuerbach… In my youth I knew whole pages from it by heart. And as far as I can judge from my faded memories of him, I remain a faithful follower of him.

Chernyshevsky criticizes the idealistic essence of the epistemology of Hegel and his Russian followers, pointing out that it turns the true state of things upside down, that it goes not from the material world to consciousness, concepts, but, on the contrary, from concepts to real objects, that it considers nature and man as a product of abstract concepts, the divine absolute idea.

Chernyshevsky defends the materialistic solution of the basic question of philosophy, shows that scientific materialistic epistemology proceeds from the recognition of ideas, concepts that are only a reflection of real things and processes occurring in the material world, in nature. He points out that concepts are the result of a generalization of the data of experience, the result of the study and knowledge of the material world, that they cover the essence of things.

“Composing for ourselves an abstract concept of an object,” he writes in the article “A Critical Look at Modern Aesthetic Concepts,” we throw off all the specific, living details with which the object appears in reality, and we only compose its general essential features; a really existing person has a certain height, a certain color of hair, a certain complexion, but the growth of one person is large, another is short, one person has a pale complexion, another is ruddy, one is white, another is swarthy, the third is like in the Negro, completely black—all these various details are not defined by the general concept, they are thrown out of it. Therefore, in a real person there are always much more signs and qualities than there are in the abstract concept of a person in general. In an abstract concept, only the essence of the object remains.

The phenomena of reality, Chernyshevsky believed, are very heterogeneous and varied. Man draws his strength from reality, real life, knowledge of it, the ability to use the forces of nature and the qualities of human nature. Acting in accordance with the laws of nature, man modifies the phenomena of reality in accordance with his aspirations.

Serious value, according to Chernyshevsky, are only those human aspirations that are based on reality. Success can be expected only from those hopes that are aroused in a person by reality.

Truth, according to Chernyshevsky, is achieved only by a strict, comprehensive study of reality, and not by arbitrary subjective reasoning. Chernyshevsky was a consistent materialist. The most important elements of his philosophical outlook are the struggle against idealism, for the recognition of the materiality of the world, the primacy of nature and the recognition of human thinking as a reflection of objective, real reality, the "anthropological principle in philosophy", the struggle against agnosticism, for the recognition of the cognizability of objects and phenomena.

Chernyshevsky solved the fundamental question of philosophy in a materialistic way, the question of the relation of thought to being. He, rejecting the idealistic doctrine of the superiority of the spirit over nature, asserted the primacy of nature, the conditionality of human thinking by real being, which has its basis in itself.

For its time, like Chernyshevsky's entire philosophy, it was chiefly directed against idealism, religion, and theological morality.

In his philosophical constructions, Chernyshevsky came to the conclusion that "a person loves himself first of all." He is an egoist, and egoism is the impulse that governs man's actions.

CONCLUSION

M. G. Chernyshevsky is a Russian materialist philosopher, revolutionary democrat, encyclopedic thinker, theorist of critical utopian socialism, ideologist of the peasant revolution. He relied on the works of ancient, as well as French and English materialism of the 17th - 18th centuries. In addition, he paid much attention to the works of natural scientists - Newton, Laplace, the ideas of utopian socialists, the classics of political economy, the anthropological materialism of Feuerbach, Hegel's dialectics. Chernyshevsky's philosophy is directed against dualism, as well as idealistic monism. He substantiated the position on the material unity of the world, the objective nature of nature and its laws. Chernyshevsky also relied on data from experimental psychology and physiology. Developed the concept of anthropological materialism. In his works, he purposefully pursued the idea of ​​the socio-political conditionality of philosophy, which has theoretical and methodological significance.

In sociology, Chernyshevsky spoke about the inevitability of social revolutions, material and economic needs. He considered the people's revolution to be a radical way of solving social problems. He opposed the doctrine of morality to religious asceticism. He deduced the criteria of beauty from the real experiences of a person, the characteristics of his psychology and taste.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

History of Philosophy / Ed. G.F. Alexandrov, B.E. Bykhovsky, M.B. Mitin, P.F. Yudin. T. I. Philosophy of ancient and feudal society. M., 2003


Orlov S.V. History of Philosophy. – St. Petersburg: Peter, 2006.


Chernyshevsky N.G. Complete collection of op. M., 1949. T. XIV.

Chernyshevsky Nikolai Gavrilovich, Russian revolutionary and thinker, writer, economist, philosopher. Born in the family of a priest. He studied at the Saratov Theological Seminary (1842-45), graduated from the historical and philological department of St. Petersburg University (1850). Ch.'s worldview was mainly formed during his student years under the influence of Russian feudal reality and the events of the revolutions of 1848–49 in Europe. The formation of his views was influenced by the classics of German philosophy, English political economy, French utopian socialism (G. Hegel, L. Feuerbach, D. Ricardo, C. Fourier, etc.), and especially the works of V. G. Belinsky and A. I. Herzen. By the time he graduated from the university, Ch. was a staunch democrat, revolutionary, socialist, and materialist. In 1851-53, Ch. taught Russian language and literature at the Saratov gymnasium, frankly expressing his convictions to the gymnasium students (many of his students later became revolutionaries). In 1853 he moved to St. Petersburg and began to collaborate in Otechestvennye Zapiski, then in Sovremennik, where he soon took a leading position.

Ch.'s worldview was based on the anthropological principle (see Anthropologism). Based on general concepts of "human nature" and his desire for "his own benefit," Ch. made revolutionary conclusions about the need to change social relations and the form of property. According to Ch., the consistently carried out anthropological principle coincides with the principles of socialism.

Standing on the positions of anthropological materialism, Ch. considered himself a student of Feuerbach, whom he called the father of new philosophy. Feuerbach's teaching, in his opinion, "... completed the development of German philosophy, which, now for the first time reaching positive decisions, threw off its former scholastic form of metaphysical transcendence and, recognizing the identity of its results with the teaching of the natural sciences, merged with the general theory of natural science and anthropology)" (Poln. sobr. soch., v. 3, 1947, p. 179). Developing Feuerbach's teaching, he put forward practice as a criterion of truth, "... this immutable touchstone of any theory..." (ibid., vol. 2, 1949, p. 102). C. contrasted the dialectical method with abstract metaphysical thinking and was aware of the class and partisan character of political theories and philosophical teachings.

In 1855, Ch. defended his master's thesis, The Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality, which marked the beginning of the development of materialistic aesthetics in Russia. Criticizing Hegelian aesthetics, he asserted the social conditioning of the aesthetic ideal and formulated the thesis "the beautiful is life" (see ibid., vol. 2, p. 10). The sphere of art, according to Ch., is not limited to the beautiful: “the general interest in life is the content of art” (ibid., p. 82). The purpose of art is the reproduction of life, its explanation, "the verdict on its phenomena"; art should be a "textbook of life" (see ibid., pp. 90, 85, 87). Ch.'s aesthetic teaching dealt a severe blow to the apolitical theory of "art for art's sake." At the same time, aesthetic issues for Ch. were only a "battlefield", his dissertation proclaimed the principles of a new, revolutionary direction.

Ch.'s journalistic activity was devoted to the struggle against tsarism and serfdom. "... He knew how," wrote V. I. Lenin, "to influence all the political events of his era in a revolutionary spirit, passing through the obstacles and slingshots of censorship the idea of ​​a peasant revolution, the idea of ​​the struggle of the masses to overthrow all the old authorities" (Poln collected works, 5th ed., vol. 20, p. 175). In 1855-57 Ch. wrote mainly historical-literary and literary-critical articles, defending the realist trend in literature, propagandizing the service of literature to the interests of the people. He studied the history of Russian journalism and social thought in the late 1920s and 1940s. 19th century ("Essays on the Gogol period of Russian literature", 1855-56), developing the traditions of Belinsky's democratic criticism. Analyzing "with adjustment to our domestic circumstances" the Enlightenment in Germany ("Lessing. His time, his life and work", 1857), C. found out the historical conditions in which literature can become "... the main engine of historical development .. ." (Poln. sobr. soch., v. 4, 1948, p. 7). Ch. highly appreciated A. S. Pushkin and especially N. V. Gogol: he considered N. A. Nekrasov the best modern poet.

From the end of 1857 Ch., having transferred the department of criticism to N. A. Dobrolyubov, concentrated all his attention on economic and political questions. Involved in a journal campaign to discuss the terms of the forthcoming peasant reform, Ch. in the articles "On the New Conditions of Rural Life" (1858), "On the Ways of Redeeming Serfs" (1858), and "Is it difficult to buy land?" (1859), "The arrangement of the life of the landlord peasants" (1859), etc., criticized the liberal-noble reform projects, opposing them with a revolutionary-democratic solution to the peasant question. He advocated the liquidation of landowner ownership of land without any redemption. In December 1858, finally convinced of the government's inability to satisfactorily resolve the peasant question, he warned of the unprecedented ruin of the peasant masses and called for a revolutionary disruption of the reform.

Overcoming anthropologism, Ch. approached the materialistic understanding of history. He repeatedly emphasized that "... mental development, like political and any other, depends on the circumstances of economic life ..." (ibid., vol. 10, 1951, p. 441).

To substantiate his political program, Ch. studied economic theories and, in the words of K. Marx, "... masterfully showed ... the bankruptcy of bourgeois political economy ..." (K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed. , vol. 23, p. 17). In the studies "Economic Activity and Legislation" (1859), "Capital and Labor" (1860), "Notes to D. S. Mill's Foundations of Political Economy" (1860), "Essays on Political Economy (according to Mill)" (1861 Ch. revealed the class character of bourgeois political economy and contrasted it with his own economic "working people's theory", which proves "... the need to replace the current economic system with a communist one ..." (Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 9, 1949 , p. 262). The economic theory of Ch. was the pinnacle of pre-Marxist economic thought. Ch. rejected the inevitability of exploitation and argued that economic forms (slavery, feudalism, capitalism) are transient. He considered the ability to ensure the growth of the productivity of social labor as a criterion for the superiority of one form over another. From this position, he criticized serfdom with exceptional depth. While recognizing the relative progressiveness of capitalism, Ch. criticized it for the anarchy of production, for competition, crises, and the exploitation of the working people, and for its inability to ensure the highest possible productivity of social labor. He considered the transition to socialism to be a historical necessity, conditioned by the entire development of mankind. Under socialism "... separate classes of hired workers and employers of labor will disappear, being replaced by one class of people who will be workers and masters together" (ibid., p. 487).

Ch. saw that the Russian economy had already begun to obey the laws of capitalism, but mistakenly believed that Russia would be able to avoid the "proletariat ulcer", because. the question of "the nature of the changes in Russian economic life" has not yet been resolved. In the articles On Landed Property (1857), Criticism of Philosophical Prejudices Against Communal Ownership (1858), Superstition and Rules of Logic (1859), and others, Ch. peasant community to go over to socialism. This opportunity, according to Ch., will open up as a result of the peasant revolution. Unlike Herzen, who believed that the socialist system in Russia would develop independently from a patriarchal peasant community, Ch. considered the assistance of the industrialized countries to be an indispensable guarantee of this development. This idea, which became a reality for backward countries with the victory of the October Socialist Revolution in Russia, was utopian under those historical conditions. Along with Herzen Ch. - one of the founders of populism.

By the beginning of 1859, Ch. had become a generally recognized leader, and Sovremennik, headed by him, had become a militant organ of revolutionary democracy. Convinced of the inevitability of imminent popular indignation, Ch. focused on the peasant revolution and developed the political program of revolutionary democracy. In a series of articles on the history of France, analyzing revolutionary events, he sought to reveal the leading role of the masses, their interest in fundamental economic changes. In the article "A Russian Man on Rendez-Vous" (1858), written in connection with I. S. Turgenev's story Asya, Ch. showed the practical impotence of Russian liberalism. In the monthly reviews of international life - "Politics" (1859-62), Ch. relied on the historical experience of Western Europe to highlight the sore issues of Russian life and indicate ways to resolve them.

In the article "The Anthropological Principle in Philosophy" (1860), systematizing his philosophical views, Ch. outlined the ethical theory of "reasonable egoism." The ethics of Ch. does not separate personal interest from the public: "reasonable egoism" is the free subordination of personal benefit to a common cause, the success of which ultimately benefits the personal interest of the individual. In his Preface to Current Austrian Affairs (February 1861), Ch. directly responded to the peasant reform, pursuing the idea that absolutism could not allow the abolition of feudal institutions and the establishment of political freedom. At the same time, Ch. headed a narrow group of like-minded people who decided to appeal to various groups of the population with appeals. In a proclamation written by him "Bow to the lordly peasants from their well-wishers ..." (taken during the arrest of an illegal printing house), he exposed the predatory nature of the peasant reform, warned the landowning peasants against spontaneous scattered actions and urged them to prepare for a general uprising at the signal of the revolutionaries. From the summer of 1861 to the spring of 1862 Ch. was the ideological inspirer and adviser to the revolutionary organization Land and Freedom. In "Letters without an address" (February 1862, published abroad in 1874), he put forward an alternative to the tsar: the rejection of autocracy or a popular revolution.

Fearing the growing influence of Ch., the tsarist government forcibly interrupted his activities. Following the ban on Sovremennik for 8 months, on July 7, 1862, Ch. (who had been under secret police surveillance since September 1861) was arrested and imprisoned in the Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The reason for the arrest was a letter from Herzen to N.A. Serno-Solovyevich intercepted by the police, in which the name of Ch. was mentioned in connection with a proposal to publish the banned Sovremennik in London. In solitary confinement, deprived of the opportunity to engage in current journalism, Ch. turned to fiction. In the novel "What to do?" (1862-63) Ch. described the life of new people - "reasonable egoists" who live by their work, arrange family life in a new way, and conduct practical propaganda of the ideas of socialism; created the images of Rakhmetov, the first professional revolutionary in Russian literature, and Vera Pavlovna, an advanced Russian woman who devoted herself to socially useful work; promoted the ideas of women's equality and artel production. The novel, which predicted the victory of the people's revolution and painted pictures of the coming society, was a synthesis of the sociopolitical, philosophical, and ethical views of Ch. and provided a practical program for the activities of progressive youth. Published due to an oversight of censorship in Sovremennik (1863), the novel had a great influence on Russian society and contributed to the education of many revolutionaries. In the Peter and Paul Fortress, Ch. also wrote the novella Alferyev (1863), Tale in the Story (1863–64), Small Stories (1864), and others. In 1864, despite the lack of evidence and brilliant self-defense, Ch. With the help of fakes and provocations, he was found guilty "of taking measures to overthrow the existing order of government" and sentenced to 7 years of hard labor and eternal settlement in Siberia. After the rite of civil execution on Mytninskaya Square (May 19, 1864), Ch. was sent to the Nerchinsk penal servitude (Kadaisky mine; in 1866 he was transferred to the Alexander Plant), and in 1871, after serving his term of hard labor, he was settled in the Vilyui prison. While in prison, he wrote the novel Prologue (1867-69; the first part was published abroad in 1877), which contained autobiographical features and painted a picture of the social struggle on the eve of the peasant reform. Among other Siberian works of Ch., the novel Reflections of Radiance, the story The Story of a Girl, the play The Craftswoman of Cooking Porridge, and others have survived (incompletely). In these works, Ch. tried to clothe his revolutionary views in the form of conversations “as if about foreign objects."

Russian revolutionaries made bold attempts to wrest Ch. from Siberian isolation (G. A. Lopatin in 1871 and I. N. Myshkin in 1875). In 1881, the Executive Committee of Narodnaya Volya, in negotiations with the Holy Squad, put forward the release of Ch. as the first condition for ending the terror. Only in 1883 Ch. was transferred to Astrakhan under the supervision of the police, and in June 1889 received permission to live in his homeland.

In Astrakhan and Saratov, Ch. wrote the philosophical work The Character of Human Knowledge, memoirs of Dobrolyubov, Nekrasov, and others; "General History" by G. Weber, accompanying the translation with his articles and comments. Ch.'s writings remained banned in Russia until the Revolution of 1905-07.

K. Marx and F. Engels studied the writings of Ch. and called him "... the great Russian scientist and critic ...", "... socialist Lessing ..." (Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 23, 18 and vol. 18, p. 522). V. I. Lenin believed that Ch. "... made a huge step forward against Herzen. Chernyshevsky was a much more consistent and militant democrat. From his writings one breathes the spirit of the class struggle" (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 25, p. 94). C. came closer to scientific socialism than other thinkers of the pre-Marxist period. Due to the backwardness of Russian life, he could not rise to the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels, but, according to Lenin, he is "... the only really great Russian writer who managed from the 50s until 88 to remain at the level integral philosophical materialism..." (ibid., vol. 18, p. 384).

The works of Ch. and the very appearance of a revolutionary, steadfast in his convictions and actions, contributed to the education of many generations of progressive Russian people. He had a great influence on the development of culture and social thought of the Russian and other peoples of the USSR.

2. Journalistic activity
3. Political ideology
4. Socio-economic views
5. Addresses in St. Petersburg
6. Reviews of descendants
7. Works
8. Quotes

Novels

• 1862−1863 - What to do? From stories about new people.
• 1863 - Tales in a story
• 1867−1870 - Prologue. A novel from the early sixties.

Tale

• 1863 - Alferiev.
• 1864 - Small stories.

Literary criticism

• 1850 - About the "Foreman" Fonvizin. PhD work.
• 1854 - On sincerity in criticism.
• 1854 - Songs of different nations.
• 1854 - Poverty is not a vice. Comedy by A. Ostrovsky.
• 1855 - Pushkin's works.
• 1855−1856 - Essays on the Gogol period of Russian literature.
• 1856 - Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. His life and writings.
• 1856 - Koltsov's poems.
• 1856 - Poems by N. Ogarev.
• 1856 - Collection of poems by V. Benediktov.
• 1856 - Childhood and adolescence. Military stories of Count L. N. Tolstoy.
• 1856 - Essays from the peasant life of A. F. Pisemsky.
• 1857 - Lessing. His time, his life and work.
• 1857 - "Provincial essays" by Shchedrin.
• 1857 - Works by V. Zhukovsky.
• 1857 - Poems by N. Shcherbina.
• 1857 - "Letters about Spain" by V.P. Botkin.
• 1858 - Russian man on rendez-vous. Reflections on reading the story of Mr. Turgenev "Asya".
• 1860 - Collection of miracles, stories borrowed from mythology.
• 1861 - Is not the beginning of a change? Stories by N. V. Uspensky. Two parts.

Publicism

• 1856 - Review of the historical development of a rural community in Russia by Chicherin.
• 1856 - "Russian conversation" and its direction.
• 1857 - "Russian conversation" and Slavophilism.
• 1857 - On land ownership.
• 1858 - Farming system.
• 1858 - Cavaignac.
• 1858 - July Monarchy.
• 1859 - Materials for solving the peasant question.
• 1859 - Superstition and the rules of logic.
• 1859 - Capital and labor.
• 1859−1862 - Politics. Monthly surveys of foreign political life.
• 1860 - History of civilization in Europe from the fall of the Roman Empire to the French Revolution.
• 1861 - Political and economic letters to the President of the United States G. K. Carey.
• 1861 - On the causes of the fall of Rome.
• 1861 - Count Cavour.
• 1861 - Disrespectful to authorities. Concerning "Democracy in America" ​​by Tocqueville.
• 1861 - To the lordly peasants from their well-wishers.
• 1862 - In gratitude Letter to Mr. Z<ари>well.
• 1862 - Letters without an address.
• 1878 - Letter to sons A. N. and M. N. Chernyshevsky.

Memoirs

• 1861 - N. A. Dobrolyubov. Obituary.
• 1883 - Memories of Nekrasov.
• 1884−1888 - Materials for the biography of N. A. Dobrolyubov, collected in 1861-1862.
• 1884−1888 - Memories of Turgenev's relationship to Dobrolyubov and the break in friendship between Turgenev and Nekrasov.

Philosophy and aesthetics

• 1854 - A critical look at modern aesthetic concepts.
• 1855 - Aesthetic relationship of art to reality. Master's dissertation.
• 1855 - Sublime and comic.
• 1855 - The nature of human knowledge.
• 1858 - Criticism of philosophical prejudice against common ownership.
• 1860 - Anthropological principle in philosophy. "Essays on questions of practical philosophy". Composition by P. L. Lavrov.
• 1888 - The origin of the theory of beneficence of the struggle for life. Preface to some treatises on botany, zoology and the sciences of human life.