The Presidential Library’s collections illustrate “master of thoughts” Nikolai Dobrolyubov

February 5, 2019 marks the 183 years since the birth of Nikolai Alexandrovich Dobrolyubov, a writer, critic, co-editor of the Nekrasov’s Sovremennik; his work reveals to us a versatile, passionate and uncompromising person. The Presidential Library’s portal features electronic copies of rare works that give an idea of ​​him as a writer and influential public figure.

At first glance, Dobrolyubov’s short life is not marked by particularly bright events. He was born in Nizhny Novgorod in the family of a priest, studied, worked for four years in Sovremennik, and died of consumption in 25 years. However, during the four years of literary activity released to him, Nikolai Dobrolyubov managed to become the “master of thoughts”, the leader of the revolutionary-democratic part of different social  classes intelligentsia of the 50s of the XIX century.  

The digitized by the Presidential Library rare book “Diaries” 1851–1859” by Nikolai Dobrolyubov, published in 1931 in “Historical Revolutionary Library” series, gives an exhaustive answer to the question of how a God-fearing seminarian, a deeply religious boy, by the age of 19 became an atheist.

Preface author Valerian Polyansky sheds light on the origins of the future writer's personality: Dobrolyubov, ““he happened to cry and rush, listening to the story of some misfortune ... suffered at the sight of someone else's suffering ... Everything that I saw, everything that I heard, developed ... a heavy feeling discontent". He began to study. The first text he wrote was: “True happiness lies in the peace of conscience”.  

Here, the teenager writes at night about his acquaintance with Feuerbach's philosophy, follows Chernyshevsky’s sharp controversy with Herzen, turns over the issues of the Polyarnaya Zvezda, delves into Chernyshevsky’s dissertation “The Aesthetic Relationship of Art to Reality” ...

“Dobrolyubov for a long time, until the summer of 1857, could not break with Herzen. We know that Dobrolyubov did not like the attacks on Herzen by Chernyshevsky, that he ... all night long, “till five in the morning” read № 2 of the Polyarnaya Zvezda ... Dobrolyubov did not like Herzen’s hesitations between democrats and liberals, since all criticism is organic I did not perceive liberalism as something half-hearted”, - we read in the preface of Valeryan Polyansky.

The young intellectual has a complicated relationship with God, he either denies it, or again bows his head in front of the altar. In March 1854, Dobrolyubov’s mother died. He prays over her coffin in the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, again, warmly and sincerely turns to God. And already in 1855, in Diaries he writes: “A terrible misfortune befell me — the death of my father and mother, but it finally convinced me that my cause was right, hurt me against that mysterious power that we dare call good and merciful, paying attention to evil scattered in the world". The next entry includes the final break with God.

Dobrolyubov needed his entire student youth to earn money, gave lessons, did not go home until the end of the course. The electronic copy of the book by A. Skabichevsky "Nikolai Dobrolyubov, his life and literary career" (1894) contains the words of the writer:" I now celebrate the Galakhovs' holidays. They accept me perfectly. But after getting up in the morning, I quickly try to put on my frock coat, so that the person would not take him to repair and not see how thin he was and wiped away, my unfortunate official frock coat. And sew a new ... where, I do not dare to think ... "

In his creative environment Dobrolyubov became famous owing to the fact that he had no authority in the literary environment.

In Skabichevsky’s book, the gap between Turgenev and Sovremennik was described due to Nekrasov’s attempt to print Dobrolyubov’s article about Turgenev’s last night “On the Eve”. “The ideal frankness in all literary relations”, - the author writes, “the absence of worship of any authority whatever was the main cause of Dobrolyubov’s clash with Turgenev.

Dobrolyubov could not tolerate Turgenev down with him. Once, when he came to the editorial office, Turgenev told Panaev and Nekrasov: “Gentlemen, do not forget, I’m waiting for you all today to dine with me - and then, turning my head to Dobrolyubov, he added: - come, you, young man.” Golovacheva asked: "Well, come on?" "Unfortunately, - he answered, - I do not have a tail coat, but I don’t dare to come to the general in my coat".

It was he, still a young author, who created the best critical articles of that time: “What is apathy?”, “A ray of light in the realm of darkness”, “When will the real day come?”. Chernyshevsky gave him without any hesitation the literary-critical part of Sovremennik magazine, concentrating entirely on political and economic issues.

However there were authors who tried to reconsider the importance of Dobrolyubov in the Russian literary process.

The younger brother of the literary critic V. A. Dobrolyubov in 1902 responded to the opponents of Nikolai Aleksandrovich in the book “The Lie of Nicholas Engelhardt and Rozanov about Nikolai. Dobrolyubov, Nikolai Chernyshevsky and the clergy”, an electronic copy of which is available on the Presidential Library’s portal.

Dobrolyubov challenged many of Rozanov’s positions, and above all his attitude to seminary education, with which Nikolai Alexandrovich was familiar with firsthand: “Peter the Great is the complete negation of seminarism,” unlike the “systematists” who order the structure of the state, but do not lead him to the new”, - says Rozanov. “I say just the opposite”, - objected Dobrolyubov, “Peter the Great is a highly state-minded, persistent, consistent, quick-witted, subtle savvy. Seminarians are just like that. I realized that their education is excellent and that gymnasium education is incomparably worse in all respects”.    

In response to Rozanov’s conclusion that the clergy of the “paralysis”, not able to “decide on its own and its own mind,” and so on, Dobrolubov exclaims with characteristic fervor: “This is Filaret, Richelieu, Mazarin, Speransky, were waiting for orders, your mind could not solve anything! Ha, ha, ha! .. ”

Dobrolyubova is often depicted as a dry, cold, rational person, not knowing impulses of feelings and living only ascetic revolutionary idea. Rarities of the Presidential Library show that this is far from being the case and that Nikolai Alexandrovich lived with all the passions of his time.

“I remember a case from my school life”, - recalls Valerian Polyansky in his preface to Diaries. 1851-1859. - One of the students caught reading Pisarev and Dobrolyubov works. Before starting the classes, the inspector convened us in the hall and delivered a speech against Pisarev and Dobrolyubov. When he started talking about Dobrolyubov as an immoral person, we, who read his writings, but did not know his actual life, standing in different parts of the room, unanimously shouted: "It is not true". The image of Dobrolyubov, formed according to his writings, was so bright us that the silly trick of the inspector made him even more interesting, even closer”.

Exhausted by his works, sleepless nights and eternal anxiety about his orphaned family, Dobrolyubov took sick in the spring of 1855 at the institute's infirmary. Six years later he died from consumption.