No Way Out (novel)

No Way Out

1879 title page
Author	Nikolai Leskov
Original title	Некуда
Country	Russia
Language	Russian
Publication date	1864
Media type	Print (Paperback & Hardback)

No Way Out (Не′куда) is an anti-nihilist novel by Nikolai Leskov, published in 1864 under the pseudonym M.Stebnitsky in Biblioteka dlya tchtenya (The Reader’s Library) magazine. The epigraph that preceded the first publication ("Quiet ones will be God-provided, the frisky one will run himself to grab. A proverb".) was later removed. During the author’s lifetime the novel was re-issued five times: in 1865, 1867, 1879, 1887 and 1889.

The novel tells the story of young and naïve European Socialist Vasily (Wilhelm) Rainer who comes to Russia to somehow apply his rootless, artificial ideas to the local reality. The action takes place in houses of state officials and merchants, in literary circles of Moscow and Saint Petersburg, in editorial rooms, Polish revolutionaries’ headquarters. Among those surrounding Rainer are some honest people (like Liza Bakhareva, another character who’s been shown by Leskov with great sympathy), but in general the 'nyhilist' community is being portrayed in the novel as a bunch of amoral crooks for whom high ideals serve as mere means to their own ends; such characters (Arapov, Beloyartsev, Zavulonov, Krasin) the author treated with open disgust.

No Way Out scandalized critics of the radical left who discovered that for most of the characters real life prototypes could be found, and its central figure, Beloyartsev, was obviously a caricature of author and social activist Vasily Sleptsov. All this seemed to confirm the view, now rooted in the Russian literary community, that Leskov was a right-wing, 'reactionary' author. In April Dmitry Pisarev wrote in his "The Walk In the Russian Literature Garden" (Russkoye slovo, 1865, #3) review: "Can there be found anywhere in Russia any other magazine, except for The Russian Messenger, that would venture on publishing anything written by and signed as, Stebnitsky? Could there be found one single honest writer in Russia who'd be so careless, so indifferent as to his reputation, so as to contribute to a magazine that adorns itself with novels and novelets by Stebnitsky?" The social democrat-controlled press started spreading rumours that No Way Out had been 'commissioned' by the Interior Ministry's 3rd Department. What Leskov condemned as "a vicious libel" caused great harm to his career: popular journals boycotted him, while Mikhail Katkov of the conservative The Russian Messenger greeted him as a political ally.