Petrashevsky Circle's members going through an 'execution ritual', an example of a mock execution. St. Petersburg, Semionov-Plaz, 1849. B. Pokrovsky's drawing
Leader
Mikhail Petrashevsky
Founded
1845 (1845)
Dissolved
1849 (1849)
Headquarters
Saint Petersburg
Ideology
Utopian socialism
Political position
Left-wing
Politics of Russia
Political parties
Elections
The Petrashevsky Circle was a Russian literary discussion group of progressive-minded intellectuals in St. Petersburg in the 1840s.[1] It was 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 Tsar Nicholas I.
Among those connected to the circle were the writers Dostoevsky and Saltykov-Shchedrin, and the poets Aleksey Pleshcheyev, Apollon Maikov, and Taras Shevchenko.[2]
Nicholas I, alarmed at the prospect of the revolutions of 1848 spreading to Russia, saw great danger in organisations like the Petrashevsky Circle. In 1849, members of the Circle were arrested and imprisoned. A large group of prisoners, Dostoevsky 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. Dostoevsky's eight-year sentence was later reduced to four years by Nicholas I.
^Evans, John L. The Petraševskij Circle 1845-1849. The Hague: Mouton, 1974.
^Lenin: Plan of Letters on Tasks of the Revolutionary Youth
and 23 Related for: Petrashevsky Circle information
The PetrashevskyCircle was a Russian literary discussion group of progressive-minded intellectuals in St. Petersburg in the 1840s. It was organized by...
known as Mikhail Petrashevsky, was a Russian Utopian theorist, best known for his central role in the activities of the PetrashevskyCircle, a literary discussion...
literary discussion group the PetrashevskyCircle. He formed a secret revolutionary society from among the members of the circle, which included the young...
Saint Petersburg's literary circles. However, he was arrested in 1849 for belonging to a literary group, the PetrashevskyCircle, that discussed banned books...
disorders. In 1849, members of Russian political discussion group the PetrashevskyCircle, including writer Fyodor Dostoevsky, were convicted for high treason...
a radical Russian poet of the 19th century, once a member of the PetrashevskyCircle. Pleshcheyev's first book of poetry, published in 1846, made him...
a Siberian detention camp for his part in the activities of the PetrashevskyCircle. After his return in 1859, Dostoevsky never resumed work on Netochka...
troubles led him to join several political circles. Because of his participation in the PetrashevskyCircle, in which he distributed and read several Belinsky...
Polish Youth "Zet" Lyubomudry Ordo Templi Orientis PetrashevskyCircle Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Circle Southern Society of the Decembrists Union of Prosperity...
poet, translator, writer, and political activist. A member of the PetrashevskyCircle and later the leader of his own underground group of intellectuals...
poet Apollon and novelist Vladimir Maykov. Valerian Maykov, once a PetrashevskyCircle associate, was considered by contemporaries as heir to Vissarion...
"revolutionary intelligentsia". Vissarion Belinsky and members of the PetrashevskyCircle were among these, being prominent figures of the movement to abolish...
acquainted with the subversive Russian literature of the Decembrists, the PetrashevskyCircle and Mikhail Bakunin among others as well as the growing student unrest...
Russia but in 1849 he was arrested there for his membership in the PetrashevskyCircle, which studied the work of French socialists and included Fyodor...
playwright, who also used the pseudonym P. Alminsky. A member of the PetrashevskyCircle, Palm in 1847 was arrested, spent 8 months in the Petropavlovsk Fortress...
arrested, along with his brother, because of his connections to the PetrashevskyCircle. In 1861 he started a magazine titled Vremya (Russian: Время, lit...
nucleus in it. He was associated with a group of Petrashevists (the PetrashevskyCircle was a Russian literary discussion group of progressive-minded intellectuals...
fellow student at the engineering school), became involved in the PetrashevskyCircle and narrowly avoided arrest.[citation needed] In 1849 he returned...
Nabokov headed The Commission of Inquiry into the activities of the PetrashevskyCircle. Ivan Nabokov died 21 April 1852 in Saint Petersburg and was buried...
and had even been banished to Siberia for his involvement in the Petrashevskycircle, by the 1860s he was becoming increasingly religious and conservative...
friend of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Both were members of the progressive PetrashevskyCircle, sentenced to the capital punishment as conspirators and both were...