Vissarion Belinsky
| Vissarion Belinsky | |
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V. Belinsky, lithograph by Kirill Gorbunov
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| Born | Vissarion Grigoryevich Belinsky June 11, 1811 Sveaborg, Grand Duchy of Finland |
| Died | June 7, 1848 (aged 36) Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire |
| Occupation | Editor of Sovremennik, and Otechestvennye Zapiski |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Period | 1830s–1840s |
| Genre | Criticism |
| Subject | Literature |
| Literary movement | Westernization |
Vissarion Grigoryevich Belinsky (Russian: Виссарио́н Григо́рьевич Бели́нский; IPA: [vʲɪsərʲɪˈon grʲɪˈgorʲjɪvʲɪtɕ bʲɪˈlʲinskʲɪj]; June 11 [O.S. May 30] 1811 – June 7 [O.S. May 26] 1848) was a Russian literary critic of Westernizing tendency. He was an associate of Alexander Herzen, Mikhail Bakunin (he at one time courted one of his sisters), and other critical intellectuals. Belinsky played one of the key roles in the career of poet and publisher Nikolay Nekrasov and his popular magazine Sovremennik.
Born in Sveaborg (now part of Helsinki), Vissarion Belinsky lived in the town of Chembar (now Belinsky in Belinsky District of Penza Oblast) and in Penza, where he studied in (1825—1829). In 1829—1832 he was a student of Moscow University. In Moscow he published his first famous articles.
In 1839 Belinsky went to St. Petersburg, Russia, where he became a respected critic and editor of two major literary magazines: Otechestvennye Zapiski ("Notes of the Fatherland"), and Sovremennik ("The Contemporary"). In both magazines Belinsky worked with younger Nikolay Nekrasov.
He was unlike most of the other Russian intellectuals of the 1830s and 1840s. The son of a rural medical doctor, he was not a wealthy aristocrat. The fact that Belinsky was relatively underprivileged meant, among other effects, that he was mainly self-educated, unlike Alexander Herzen or Mikhail Bakunin, this was partly due to being expelled from Moscow University for political activity. But it was less for his philosophical skill that Belinsky was admired and more for emotional commitment and fervor. “For me, to think, to feel, to understand and to suffer are one and the same thing,” he liked to say. This was, of course, true to the Romantic ideal, to the beliefs that real understanding comes not only from mere thinking (reason), but also from intuitive insight. This combination of thinking and feeling pervaded Belinsky’s life.
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