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What Is To Be Done? The book that helped spark the Russian Revolution
The book that helped spark the Russian Revolution
While Solzhenitsyn, Chekhov, Nabokov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Turgenev have their places enshrined in the literary pantheon, Chernyshevsky’s work, which is arguably the most transformative novel in Russia’s 19th century, sits awkwardly, cherished by revolutionaries but snubbed by dilettantes. Unlike Plato’s Republic, which envisions a rigidly stratified ideal society, or Thomas More’s Utopia, with its idyllic but passive communal life, Chernyshevsky’s novel is a call to action, firmly rooted in the turbulence of 19th-century Russia. The philosophical underpinning of rational egoism bridges their works, Chernyshevsky’s characters attempt to bring moral thought to balance self-interest with societal welfare, while Rand’s figures boldly declare the primacy of self.
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