Diaries of N. A. Dobrolyubov and polemics on him in the Presidential Library collections

On the eve of the 180th anniversary of Nikolai Dobrolyubov (1836-1861), which is celebrated on February 5, 2016, the Presidential Library website makes available electronic copies of rare works that give an idea of him as a literary critic and influential public figure.

At first sight, the short life of Dobrolyubov was not marked by spectacular events. He was born in Nizhny Novgorod in the family of a priest, studied and worked for four years in the "Contemporary." He died of tuberculosis at such a young age, when many people just begin living. However, in four years of his literary activity, Nikolai Dobrolyubov had become "master of doom", the leader of the revolutionary-democratic part of raznochinetz intelligentsia of 1860-ies.

A rare book by Nikolai Dobrolyubov "Diaries. 1851-1859" published in 1931 in the series "Historical and Revolutionary Library" and digitized by the Presidential Library, gives an exhaustive answer to the question of how this God-fearing, deeply religious boy by the age of 19 became a notorious atheist, philosopher, follower of the most revolutionary and atheistic materialist philosophy. Here he writes at night about his acquaintance with the philosophy of Feuerbach, following the sharp controversy between Herzen and Chernyshevsky, leafing through the issues of the "North Star", delving into Chernyshevsky’s thesis, "The Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality”...

Diary pages help to understand the process of internal development of this extraordinary young man. For example, in the diary entry of March 7, 1853 and then for the whole month 17-year-old Dobrolyubov grieves for his sins and the "laziness to pray, his absent-mindedness and frivolity, liberty of judgments, lying, cunning, popularity" (totally 32 pages of fine print). However, below we already see a breakdown in religiousness of the young man. He doubts "the most important truths of salvation." Moreover, the enumeration of sins, according to Chernyshevsky, indicates not the remorse for sins but the "warming of vanishing religiousness."

In 1855, Dobrolyubov wrote that his friends and he "affect the great problems" and that they "are mostly interested in their native Russia with a great future." The entry of January 15 of the 1857 diary says, "I am a desperate socialist, who is ready to attach himself in a poor society with equal rights..."

It was he who, still a very young writer created the best critical articles of the time: "What is oblomovism?", "Ray of light in the darkness," "When will the real day come?" It was him, whom Chernyshevsky, without any hesitation, entrusted literary criticism of the "Contemporary", whie focusing entirely on political and economic issues himself.

There were, however, the authors who tried to review the importance of Dobrolyubov in the national literary process.

In 1902, the younger brother of the literary critic, V. A. Dobrolyubov, answered the opponents of Nikolai in his, "Lies of Mr. Nicholas Engelhardt and Rozanov about N. A. Dobrolyubov, N. G. Chernyshevsky and the clergy." Its electronic copy has been made available on the website of the Presidential Library. The publication describes that the day of the fortieth anniversary of death of Nikolai Dobrolyubov was commemorated by almost the entire Russian press, except for the "New time." And two weeks later, Nicholas Engelhardt published there his article "Utilitarianism in Art":

Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky were accused of using literary works only to "distract the public from the art and focus all the power of the mind on the single point, on crushing of serfdom" instead of making a comprehensive assessment of those works. The author rejected the view of Mr. Engelhardt and Mr. Rozanov, and rebuked angrily.

Dobrolyubov is often depicted as a cold, rational person, not knowing real feelings and impulses, living only by an ascetic revolutionary idea. Rarities of the Presidential Library show that this is not so and that Nikolai lived by all the passions of his time, being in the midst of them.