Who was Vissarion Belinsky and why was he significant?
Vissarion Belinsky was a Russian literary critic who lived from 1811 to 1848 and is widely considered the most influential Westernizer among the Russian intelligentsia of his era. He worked as an editor and critic at two major literary magazines, Otechestvennye Zapiski and Sovremennik, where he shaped the moral and social outlook of a generation of younger Russian writers and thinkers. Isaiah Berlin described him as having transformed the concept of the critic's calling in Russia.
What did Belinsky believe about the role of literature in society?
Belinsky believed that literature was the one domain that the repressive reign of Nicholas I could not fully silence, and he chose to work there deliberately because it was less heavily censored than political pamphlets. He demanded above all that literature contain "truth," meaning a probing portrayal of real life and a commitment to the dignity of individual people. He told Nikolai Gogol that the public would forgive a writer for a bad book but never for a pernicious one.
What happened to Dostoevsky because of Belinsky's letter to Gogol?
Fyodor Dostoevsky read aloud at several public events Belinsky's letter to Gogol, which called for the end of serfdom, and a secret press was assembled to print and distribute the letter. For these acts, Dostoevsky was arrested, convicted, and condemned to death in 1849. That sentence was later commuted to four years in the prison camps of Siberia.
Where did Belinsky work as a literary critic and editor?
Belinsky moved to St. Petersburg in 1839 and became an editor and critic at Otechestvennye Zapiski (Notes of the Fatherland) and Sovremennik (The Contemporary). At both publications he worked alongside the poet and publisher Nikolay Nekrasov, and the two together helped establish The Contemporary as the leading literary magazine of St. Petersburg.
How did Belinsky's background differ from other Russian intellectuals of his time?
Belinsky was the son of a rural medical doctor and was not a wealthy aristocrat, unlike most Russian intellectuals of the 1830s and 1840s. He was expelled from Moscow University for political activity and was largely self-educated as a result. His peers admired him less for philosophical skill than for his emotional commitment and fervor.
How did Tom Stoppard come to include Belinsky in The Coast of Utopia?
Isaiah Berlin's 1978 book Russian Thinkers, which contained a chapter on Belinsky, introduced the critic to the British playwright Tom Stoppard. Stoppard subsequently made Belinsky one of the principal characters in his trilogy about Russian writers and activists, The Coast of Utopia, which premiered in 2002.