Varfolomeï Zaïtsev

Varfolomey Alexandrovich Zaytsev (; 11 September 1842 – 20 January 1882) was a Russian literary critic, historian, journalist, and publicist. He was a leading figure of the Russian nihilist movement in literary publication of his time.

Career

Arguably the most ardent and confrontational author of Russkoye Slovo in 1863—1865, Zaytsev propagated the 'negation of aesthetics' doctrine, panned Alexey Pisemsky's and Nikolai Leskov's anti-nihilistic novels and published critical essays which were "not dry and dour book reviews but fiery propaganda in the form of literary criticism... written with blood from open heart and juices of nerves," according to the critic and fellow Social Democrat Nikolai Shelgunov. It was Zaytsev who chose to take Saltykov-Shchedrin's remark concerning Chernyshevsky's novel What Is to Be Done as a pretext for instigating the long and bitter feud with Sovremennik which came to be known (via Dostoyevsky) as 'the break among the nihilists'.

In 1866 after Dmitry Karakozov's attempt at the life of the Tsar, Zaytsev was arrested and spent several months in the Petropavlovskaya Fortress. In 1869 he left Russia and, having veered towards the anarchists and Mikhail Bakunin in particular, launched the Italian section of the 1st International in Turin. Later in his life he veered towards the revolutionary narodniks and became friends with Georgy Plekhanov, Vera Zasulich and Sergey Stepnyak-Kravchinsky.

The Selected Works by V.A. Zaytsev came out in Moscow, USSR, in 1934.