Strakhov N. N. (1828-1896), critic

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STRAKHOV Nikolay Nikolaevich (1828-1896, St. Petersburg), literary critic, philosopher, publicist, full councilor of State (1885), corresponding member of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1889). Lived in St. Petersburg from 1844, he graduated in 1851 from the Faculty of Natural Mathematics of the Central Pedagogical Institute. In the first half of the 1860s Strakhov was the leading critic for Vremya and Epokha journals. Serving in 1873-85 as a librarian of the Imperial Public Library Law Department, he also from 1874 acted as a member of the Ministry of People's Education Expert Committee. One of the most eminent adherents of late Slavophilism (the so-called pochvennichestvo movement, from the Russian - return to the soil), and author of numerous philosophical treatises, in his critical and journalistic works he levelled against the so called nihilism (The Fight Against the West in Our Literature, volumes 1-3, 1882-96, and others). A. A. Grigoryev, F. M. Dostoevsky, Lev Tolstoy were among Strakhov's friends, of whom he later wrote reminiscences. The series of articles on Tolstoy's War and Peace and his critical analyses of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment are considered to be one of Strakhov's best critical literary works. In 1893 he was elected an honorary member of the Society of Psychology and in 1894 to the Slavic Society. He lived at 39 B. Meshchanskaya Street (presently Kazanskaya Street). Strakhov was buried at Novodevichoe Cemetery.

Works: Reminiscences and Fragments. St. Petersburg, 1892.

References: Никольский Б. В. Николай Николаевич Страхов. СПб., 1896; Авдеева Л. Р. Русские мыслители: Ап. А. Григорьев, Н. Я. Данилевский, Н. Н. Страхов: Филос. культурология второй половины XIX в. М., 1992. С. 110-137; Скатов Н. Н. Н. Н. Страхов (1828-1896) // Страхов Н. Н. Литературная критика: Сб. ст. СПб., 2000. С. 3-41.

I. E. Vasilyeva. Dostoevsky Fedor Mikhailovich
Grigoryev Apollon Alexandrovich
Strakhov Nikolay Nikolaevich
Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich, Count
Kazanskaya Street/Saint Petersburg, city, house 39
Авдеева Л. Р. Русские мыслители: Ап. А. Григорьев, Н. Я. Данилевский, Н. Н. Страхов: Филос. культурология второй половины XIX в. М., 1992
Скатов Н. Н. Н.Н. Страхов (1828 - 1896) // Страхов Н.Н. Литературная критика: Сб. ст. СПб., 2000
Никольский Б. В. Николай Николаевич Страхов. СПб., 1896 Russian Academy of Sciences
Vremya (The Time), journal
Epokha (The Epoch), journal
Ministry of Public Education
Russian National Library
Novodevichye Cemetery
Novodevichye Cemetery