person
Dmitry Ivanovich Pisarev
Pisarev
also: Писарев, Дмитрий Иванович Писарев
Dmitry Pisarev (1840-1868), radical Russian literary critic and leading voice of 1860s nihilism, whose essays were touchstone reading for progressive-minded university students; Shalikov's mention of having once read him marks the gulf between his idealistic student years and his present embittered, petty existence.
Reading notes
- The Story of a Commercial Venture §7 the third volume of Pisarev
Dmitry Pisarev (1840-1868), the radical critic and touchstone of 1860s nihilist youth; Sidorov keeps a single volume of him on the farthest shelf as a kind of talisman of seriousness, produced with theatrical mystery for friends. By loc 29 it is sold off with the rest of the stock by weight, 'at one rouble five kopecks the pood' -- the story's bluntest image of ideas reduced to merchandise.
- To A. S. Suvorin, 15 May 1889. Sumy. §4 Such a warring Spanish monk, in the eighteen-sixties, was
our own Pisarev.
Dmitry Ivanovich Pisarev (1840-1868), the radical Russian literary and social critic associated with nihilism and the utilitarian view of art and science in the 1860s. Chekhov's dating ("in the eighteen-sixties") matches Pisarev's active career; calling him a "warring Spanish monk" is an ironic extension of the alchemist/astrologer-monk analogy just given in the same section, casting Pisarev as a modern instance of the same uncomprehending, combative type -- a man who "made war" on what he could not fully understand rather than examining the discord within himself.
- Neighbors §67 Pisarev or Darwin
Pisarev and Dobrolyubov, mentioned in the following sentence, were touchstone radical/progressive critics for Russian university students of the 1860s-70s; Darwin here stands generically for scientific materialism. Vlasich's habit of pressing this same short, dated reading list on every overnight guest is part of the story's portrait of a liberalism that has calcified into rote gesture.