Viktor Klyushnikov

Viktor Petrovich Klyushnikov (, 22 March 1841 – 19 November 1892) was a Russian writer, editor and journalist, whose debut novel, Marevo (Марево, Haze, Russky Vestnik, 1864), was considered by contemporary Russian critics to be one of the four 'great anti-nihilist' novels of the time, alongside Troubled Seas by Alexey Pisemsky, No Way Out by Nikolai Leskov and Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Both Ivan Turgenev and Alexey K. Tolstoy reacted positively, hailing the arrival of the original, even if erratic literary talent, "who [was playing] with his gift in acrobatic fashion," according to Tolstoy.

None of Klyushnikov's later works, among them Bolshiye korabli (Большие корабли, Big Ships, 1866), Tsygane (Цыгане, Gypsies, 1869), Drugaya zhizn (Другая жизнь, Another Life, 1865), Pri Petre (При Петре, In the Times of Peter the Great, 1872, co-authored by Vasily Kelsiyev), Semya volnodumtsev (Семья вольнодумцев, Free-Thinkers' Family, 1872, co-authored by Pyotr Petrov), Gosudar-otrok (Государь-отрок, The Young Tsar, 1880), have come even close to repeating the success of his debut.