Nikolay Konstantinovich Mikhaylovsky

Nikolay Konstantinovich Mikhaylovsky (born Nov. 27 [Nov. 15, Old Style], 1842, Meshchovsk, Russia—died Feb. 10 [Jan. 28], 1904, St. Petersburg) was a Russian literary critic and publicist whose views provided much of the theoretical basis for the Populist (Narodnik) movement.

Born into a noble family and trained as a mining engineer, Mikhaylovsky began writing for the press in 1860. From 1868 to 1884 he was associated with the widely read St. Petersburg literary journal Otechestvennye Zapiski (“Native Notes”). Building upon the critical traditions established by N.G. Chernyshevsky and N.A. Dobrolyubov, he viewed the writer as the moral judge of society and viewed literature as an expression of conscience, in which the writer analyzed reality from the standpoint of a particular subjective ideal. His most celebrated pieces were “The Left and Right Hand of Count Leo Tolstoy” (1873), which accurately predicted Tolstoy’s later social doctrines, and “A Cruel Talent” (1882), a criticism of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Possessed.

Although he took no personal part in revolutionary or illegal activities, his provocative pieces and well-known sympathies were highly influential. Opposed to the social implications of evolutionary theory, Mikhaylovsky held that history followed no predetermined pattern; his faith in individualism and rationalism gave a liberal cast to the Populist (Narodnik) ideology of his followers. Mikhaylovsky championed the obligations of the nobility toward the people; he also set himself at variance with Marxism in his call for the Russian intelligentsia to draw upon the strength, values, and institutions of the peasantry in the struggle for progress and social change.

Mikhaylovsky was temporarily banished from St. Petersburg (1882 and 1891) for his ties to revolutionary organizations, but in 1892 he became the editor of the liberal populist journal Russkoye bogatstvo (“Russian Wealth”), a post he held until his death.