Translation. Region: Russian Federation –
Source: Official website of the State –
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Nikolai Alexandrovich Dobrolyubov was a Russian literary critic, publicist, representative of the "Revolutionary Democrats" club, and poet. He was born on February 5, 1836, into a priest's family. He spent his childhood in Nizhny Novgorod, receiving a good education from his parents at home. It was thanks to this that he was accepted directly into his final year of study at the seminary. Even then, he began keeping a list of the books he had read and recording his impressions of them.
In 1853, Dobrolyubov enrolled in the Main Pedagogical Institute of St. Petersburg, in the history and philology department. There, he organized an underground circle, leading the students' struggle against the reactionary administration of the institute, and began publishing a handwritten newspaper, "Rumors." Nikolai was not afraid to express his sharply negative attitude toward the autocracy in works such as "On the 50th Anniversary of N.I. Grech" and "One on the Death of Nicholas I," which were also distributed beyond the institute.
The young critic's work was greatly influenced by representatives of the revolutionary democratic intelligentsia—Vissarion Belinsky, Alexander Herzen, and Nikolai Chernyshevsky, with whom he began working on the magazine Sovremennik and later on the Magazine for Education. In 1858, with the support of Nikolai Nekrasov, the satirical magazine Svistok was launched, and in 1859–60, articles on the greatest works of Russian writers appeared: "What is Oblomovism?" (about I. A. Goncharov's novel Oblomov), "The Dark Kingdom" and "A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom" (about the plays of A. N. Ostrovsky), and "When Will the Real Day Come?" (about I. S. Turgenev's novel On the Eve).
Dobrolyubov used books as an analysis of Russian life, turning Oblomov and Catherine into symbols of the vices of an entire class. He declared that literature was a reflection of social ills.
In May 1860, at the urging of close friends, Nikolai traveled abroad for treatment for tuberculosis. For over a year, he spent time in Germany, Switzerland, and France. He stayed in Italy for over six months, during which time events related to the national liberation movement led by Garibaldi were taking place. He used the material he collected about the Italian Revolution to expose the anti-popular nature of bourgeois liberalism and glorified the republicans (in "An Incomprehensible Strangeness," "Father Alexander Gavazzi and His Sermons," and "The Life and Death of Count Camillo Benzo Cavour").
Dobrolyubov returned to Russia in July 1861. He had failed to overcome his illness, a battle intertwined with intense work. Seeing off his friend on his final journey, Nekrasov described Nikolai Alexandrovich's biography with these words: "A poor childhood, in the home of a poor village priest; a half-starved education; then four years of feverish, tireless labor; and finally, a year abroad, spent in premonitions of death."
Although Dobrolyubov lived a short life—only 25 years—his contribution to Russia's present and future was truly invaluable. In his work, Dobrolyubov denounced despotism and the feudal system, comparing it to a prison in which all life perishes. He condemned inaction and passivity, arguing for the inevitability of the emergence of a hero-fighter. He considered public service "the highest criterion of an artist's work." It was Nikolai Alexandrovich who became one of the era's leading critics, coining such terms as "Oblomovism," "the dark kingdom," "ray of light," and others, which immediately caught on and became commonplace in discussing social phenomena.
On the 40th anniversary of the critic’s death, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin said that he was dear to “all educated and thinking Russia.”
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