Dmitri Pisarev

• Pisarev did not believe that a revolution was possible in Russia in the 1850s and 1860s.
• He called for a complete re-evaluation of the nature of Russian society and government.
• He rejected all current political and religious authority and aimed to reimagine society from scratch.
• His philosophy was termed as “nihilism” which comes from the Latin word for nothing.
• Nihilism became a popular ideological movement among young people, especially students in the 1860s.
• Some of the more radical elements moved away from Pisarev’s distaste for revolution and began talking about revolutionary action to sweep away tsarist autocracy.