Circle of Tchaikovsky

The Circle of Tchaikovsky, also known as Tchaikovtsy, Chaikovtsy, or the Grand Propaganda Society (Чайковцы, Большое общество пропаганды in Russian) was a Russian literary society for self-education and a revolutionary organization of the Narodniks in the early 1870s.

The intelligentsia of mid-nineteenth century Tsarist Russia were dissatisfied with what they saw as social stagnation of the nation and had begun to demand reform (their attitude was notably characterised by novelist Ivan Turgenev as nihilism). The peak of this social activism gave rise to a number of secret organisations, among them Land and Liberty, People's Revenge, and the Circle of Tchaikovsky.

The Circle was founded in St. Petersburg during student unrest in 1868-1869 as a group opposed to the reckless violence of Sergey Nechayev. It was named after Nikolai Tchaikovsky, one of its prominent members. A literary society for self-education within the Medical Surgical Academy was the heart of the organization, the initial purpose of which was to share books and knowledge that had been banned in the Russian Empire. It included students Mark Natanson, V. M. Aleksandrov, and Anatoly Serdyukov, who were joined by Nikolai Tchaikovsky and Feofan Lermontov. Besides self-education, the circle's main tasks were to unite students of Petersburg and other cities, and conduct propaganda among workers and peasants with the purpose of fomenting a social revolution. The Tchaikovsky set higher moral standards for their members in the face of Nechayev's unscrupulousness. They had a negative attitude towards struggle for political freedoms, which, in their view, were only advantageous to the arising Russian bourgeoisie. These principles were formulated in the Программа для кружков самообразования и практической деятельности (Program for the circles of self-education and practical activity), put together by the Tchaikovtsy in late 1870 – early 1871.

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