Petrashevsky Circle

Petrashevsky Circle's members going through an 'execution ritual', an example of a mock execution. St. Petersburg, Semionov-Plaz, 1849.
B. Pokrovsky's drawing

The Petrashevsky Circle was a Russian literary discussion group of progressive-minded commoner-intellectuals in St. Petersburg organized by Mikhail Petrashevsky, a follower of the French utopian socialist Charles Fourier. Among the members were writers, teachers, students, minor government officials, and army officers. While differing in political views, most of them were opponents of the tsarist autocracy and Russian serfdom. Like that of the Lyubomudry group founded earlier in the century, the purpose of the circle was to discuss Western philosophy and literature that was officially banned by the Imperial government of Nicholas I. Among those connected to the circle were the writers Dostoyevsky and Saltykov-Shchedrin, the poets Pleshcheyev, Apollon Maikov, and Taras Shevchenko.^[1]

Nicholas I, alarmed at the prospect of the revolutions of 1848 spreading to Russia, saw great danger in secret organisations like the Petrashevsky Circle. In 1849, members of the Circle were arrested and imprisoned. A large group of prisoners, Dostoyevsky among them, were sent to Semyonov Place for execution. As they stood in the square waiting to be shot, a messenger interrupted the proceedings with notice of a reprieve. As part of a pre-planned intentional deception, the Tsar had prepared a letter to general-adjutant Sumarokov, commuting the death sentences to incarceration. Some of the prisoners were sent to Siberia, others to prisons. Dostoyevsky's eight-year sentence was later reduced to four years by Nicholas I.

Beliefs and Influences

The Petrashevsky circle was in close contact with other clandestine groups that shared their opposition to censorship, serfdom and official corruption. The ideas of a number of socialist and anarchist theorists informed their discussions, particularly those of Étienne Cabet, Charles Fourier and Proudhon.

Two of the best known writers associated with the Petrashevsky Circle, Valerian Maykov and Vissarion Belinsky, died before it was broken. Valerian Maykov was very close to Petrashevsky and took a large part in the compilation of Kirillov's work, "Dictionary of Foreign Words", one of the prosecution's corpus delicti. Belinsky, the author of Letter to Gogol, in which he castigates the great writer for supporting the Tsar and the Church over enlightened socialist principles,^[2] would have been classified as the most dangerous criminal, since many of the Petrashevsky Circle members' only fault had been participation in the dissemination of the text of the letter. Among these was the poet Aleksey Pleshcheyev who, according to the verdict, "for distributing Belinsky's letter, was deprived of all rights of the state and sent to hard labor in factories for 4 years." One of the reasons for Golovinski, Dostoyevsky and Palm's convictions was the 'failure to report' on those who took part in publishing Belinsky's letter.

Some members escaped prosecution. These included V. A. Èngel (later an active participant in Herzen's Polar Star), well-known Slavophile theorist Nikolai Danilevsky, writer Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, and poet Apollon Maykov, who occasionally visited Petrashevsky's Friday meetings.

Members of the Petrashevsky circle exiled to Siberia and the Kazakh steppe influenced the nascent Kazakh intelligentsia. One of the most notable interlocutors of Dostoyevsky during his time of exile was the Kazakh scholar and military officer Chokan Valikhanov.

List of Petrashevists

1. Mikhail Petrashevsky, titular councilor, 27 years old
2. Dmitry Akhsharumov, Ph.D. St. Petersburg State University, 26 years old
3. Vasily Golovinski, titular councilor, 20 years old
4. Nikolai Petrovich Grigoriev, Lieutenant Guards Horse-Grenadier Regiment
5. Hippolyte Deboo, serving in the Asian Department, 25 years old
6. Konstantin Deboo, serving in the Asian Department, 38 years old
7. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, a retired engineer lieutenant, writer, 27 years old
8. Sergei Durov, a retired collegiate assessor, writer, 33 years old
9. Alexander Evropeus, a retired collegiate secretary, 2? years old
10. Basil Kamen, the son of honorary citizen, 19 years old
11. Nikolay Kashkin, serving in the Asian Department, 20 years old
12. Fedor Lvov, captain of the Life Guards regiment of Chasseurs, 25 years old
13. Nikolay Mombelli, the lieutenant of the Life Guards regiment of Moscow, 27 years old
14. Alexander Palm, lieutenant of the Life Guards regiment of Chasseurs, 27 years old
15. Aleksey Pleshcheyev, non-serviceman, writer, 23 years old
16. Nikolay Speshnyov, lord of the Kursk province, 28 years old
17. Konstantin Timkovsky, titular councilor, 35 years old
18. Felix Toll, master chief engineering school, 26 years old
19. Pavel Filippov, a student at St. Petersburg University, 24 years old
20. Alexander Khanykov, a student at St. Petersburg University, 24 years old
21. Raphael Chernosvitov, a retired lieutenant colonel (former superintendent), 39 years old
22. Peter Shaposhnikov, a tradesman, 28 years old
23. Ivan Yastrzhembsky, Assistant Inspector in the Institute of Technology, 34 years old
24. Alexander Balasoglo, a poet, a retired naval officer, 36 years old

In total, about forty Petrashevists were arrested, including 21 intended to be sentenced to death, with one gone mad in the process of investigation and having the sentence deferred.

References

1. Lenin: Plan of Letters on Tasks of the Revolutionary Youth
2. Belinsky, Vissarion. "Letter to Gogol". marxists.org. Retrieved April 30, 2016.