Abstract

The literary critic Vissarion Belinsky was not only the leading early proponent of Realism in Russian literature, he fundamentally helped to transform the social role of philosophy within Russian culture, thereby laying the foundations for a new social phenomenon—what would later become known as the “intelligentsia.” Belinsky was hardly a “serious” philosopher, and his significance within the history of philosophy per se is negligible. Yet his seminal understanding of “reality”—influenced most of all by Hegel—was the product of a tortuous process of personal and philosophical development. Ultimately, it led to the emergence of a new socio-historical sense of self that would become the basis for the intelligentsia’s conception of a shared identity. Although we must acknowledge that the Russian “intelligentsia” represents a powerful, retrospective cultural myth—this only underscores Belinsky’s importance as one of the central protagonists of this myth, as well as one of its original co-authors. Accordingly, this chapter will outline Belinsky’s turbulent intellectual development, with its continuous intertwining of personal dramas and “furious” journalist polemics.