Russian Fantasy

Chernyshevsky’s 1863  What Is To Be Done? – described by Joseph Frank was “one of the most successful works of propaganda ever written in fictional form,” inspiring Lenin among others – describes a romantic triangle between two medical students and their love, Vera Pavlovna.  Not long before Turgenev had written his Fathers and Sons , whose tragic protagonist Bazarov cannot escape the net of contradictions between his rationalistic philosophy and his desires.  Chernyshevsky’s novel refutes Turgenev.  As Frank summarizes:

“whereas Bazarov is destroyed when his fatal attraction to Mme Odintsova proves strong than his will, the opposite occurs to Chernyshevsky’s characters.  Since they follow the precepts of ‘rational egoism,’ they are able to untie the woefully tangled love knot without a quiver of the outdated romantic Weltschmerz that undoes Bazarov, or even a trace of such primitive emotions as resentment or jealousy.”

No wonder Chernyshevsky’s book drove Dostoevsky’s Underground Man to such raving mockery.