“It is not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them — the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas.” –Fyodor Dostoevsky
St. Petersburg—the glittering cultural epicentre of Russia—in the 1840s was brimming with educated, restless people seeking outlets and platforms and for their well-formulated ideas and opinions. Mikhail Petrashevsky (1821-1866), writer and theorist, was one such individual.
A student of the liberal arts, he was utterly fascinated by French philosopher Charles Fourier’s theories of establishing a utopia, and knew he wasn’t the only one crackling with the drive to change everything from scratch. He possessed the insight to draw his friends and acquaintances together to form an effective discussion group which would become known as the Petrashevsky Circle. Their time together would dominate the literary scene of the decade.
The glue that held this wide circle together was literature. The prerequisite for joining was that you not only had to be an extensive reader, but your career and/or interests had to revolve around books as well. Subsequently, the circle collected an all-star cast: the writer Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, the poets Aleksey Pleshcheyev, Apollon Nikolayevich Maykov, and Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko, and that ultimate catch for any literary friend group in the country, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. Included also—under clandestine circumstances, given the nature of their positions—were an array of army officers, government office holders, teachers, and university students.
What attracted this crowd most to Petrashevsky’s orbit was the fact that he owned a rich library of banned books and was willing to dole them out to whoever wanted them. These books became the foundation for deep and extensive conversations on politics, philosophy, and ethics, with the objective of devising for Russia a freer and more just social order.
Russia, at the time, was dictated by a centuries-old rigid hierarchy that left little wiggle room for liberty and upwards mobility for the working classes, so these discussions had plenty of influence to fuel them. The group was so successful that they even snagged prominent, progressive-minded nobleman Nikolay Alexandrovich Speshnev as a very active member. This is when the Russian powers that be really started to worry.
Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, like any insecure ruler sitting on top of a shaky empire, felt threatened by the prospect that these great intellectuals, through their frequent gatherings, might be sowing the seeds for an uprising against his regime. All revolutions start with ideas, and all ideas come from major thinkers. It was already happening throughout the whole continent of Europe, which was bursting with citizens dissatisfied with their governments and taking organized action.
The Revolutions of 1848 saw chaotic rebellions in Ireland, France, Hungary, Poland, the divided Italian States, and what was formerly known as the German Confederation, among others. For a thoroughly anxious Nicholas I, the Petrashevsky Circle’s existence represented far from than an elite social club. It was a yet-unutilized weapon that needed to be swiftly dismantled. A spy agent named Antonelli attended the meetings and reported back.
Blame for the group’s first wave of downfall can be lain primarily at the feet of Speshnev. As an individualistic and recklessly energetic character who craved more direct action rather than just talk, he formulated his own secret society among fellow conspirators in the group and made blueprints for a revolt against the higher government. Petrashevsky didn’t endorse this plan, as he was firmly against using violence to bring new ideas to fruition. He was ultimately unable to prevent the circle’s division and Speshnev’s near-usurpation.
Petrashevsky was, tragically, losing his grip as the leader of the group, as the members broke off yet again to form the Palm-Durov circle, led by the writers Alexander Palm and Sergey Durov. Palm and Durov were roommates, and their subgroup established their headquarters in their shared apartment to produce, publish, and distribute anti-government literature.
One of these pamphlets was a piece titled “A Soldier’s Conversation,” written by officer Nikolay Grigoryev. The work praised an uprising that had taken place in France and encouraged the intended readers, the literate peasant class, to follow France’s example and do the same. Pavel Filippov also penned a daring rewrite of the Ten Commandants to justify acting against oppressors. Then, the group began reading aloud and distributing Vissarion Belinsky’s letter denouncing Nikolai Gogol as an unsavory loyalist to the governmental and religious status quo. Petrashevsky once again tried to put a halt on the controversy, but failed. The group was thoroughly divided.
Things had gone too far for the Tsar’s taste. On April 22, 1849, the members of the group began to be rounded up like cattle and arrested for their “crimes,” though no instance of real civil unrest caused by the group ever occurred. Some managed to make a swift escape, but the majority were duly imprisoned in the forbidding Peter and Paul Fortress, the official holding place for all political criminals in St. Petersburg. They were interrogated, and wrung out for any and all information regarding their group’s activities, most especially the Belinsky letter that denounced the Tsar and the Russian Orthodox Church’s power.
The Tsar took advantage of the situation and used the opportunity to stage a mock execution that would paint him in a positive light as a forgiving and generous ruler. On December the twenty-second, the prisoners were led out to Semonovsky Square and sentenced to death by firing squad. Three—one of whom was the unfortunate and well-meaning moderate Petrashevsky—were prepared for their immediate fate…and were then acquitted by direct order of the “merciful” Tsar. Dostoevsky, one of the prisoners who was subjected to this morbid piece of politically driven theatre, famously immortalized the trauma of the experience in his 1868 novel The Idiot:
"The uncertainty and feeling of aversion for the new thing which was going to overtake him immediately, was terrible.”
The prisoners, after having swords broken over their heads to symbolize their new status as long-term prisoners and social outcasts, were shipped off to Siberia for long, gruelling years of hard labour. The sufferings of the prison camps would not alter the principles of their inhabitants, but it would bring about one of the greatest works of semi- autobiographical Russian literature. This would be Dostoevsky’s novel Notes from the House of the Dead.
“Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.”—Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin.
