NIKOLAI LESKOV'S NOVEL “NO WAY OUT” AS A REFLECTION ON “REAL” NIHILISTS

<!DOCTYPE html><html><head></head><body><p class="w_txt_td"><strong>Aim.</strong> To reconstruct the social and political content of Nikolai Leskov&rsquo;s novel &ldquo;No Way Out&rdquo;, in which Leskov&rsquo;s reflections on...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Boris A. Prokudin
Format: Article
Language:Russian
Published: Moscow Region State University Editorial Office 2023-01-01
Series:Вестник Московского государственного областного университета
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Online Access:http://old.evestnik-mgou.ru/en/Articles/View/1211
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Summary:<!DOCTYPE html><html><head></head><body><p class="w_txt_td"><strong>Aim.</strong> To reconstruct the social and political content of Nikolai Leskov&rsquo;s novel &ldquo;No Way Out&rdquo;, in which Leskov&rsquo;s reflections on &ldquo;real&rdquo; nihilists were a crucial part.<br /><strong>Methodology.</strong> The methodological basis of this study is the historical and political science approach to the study of fiction texts.<br /><strong>Results.</strong> For a long time it was believed that Nikolai Leskov's novel &ldquo;No Way Out&rdquo; is anti-nihilistic. However, Leskov himself was convinced that in his novel he was developing the &ldquo;main idea&rdquo; of Nikolai Chernyshevsky's nihilistic novel &ldquo;What Is To Be Done?&rdquo;, which is considering of be the &ldquo;Nihilistic Gospel&rdquo;. He attempted to show the fundamental differences between the &ldquo;real&rdquo; nihilists, people of duty and labor, and the &ldquo;crowd of empty insignificant people&rdquo; who call themselves nihilists. The article shows the main difference in the method of describing the &ldquo;real&rdquo; nihilists of Chernyshevsky and Leskov. While the first affirmed the idea of the need for honest work, showing solely a positive example of the ideal &ldquo;new people&rdquo;, the second followed the principle of contradiction and exposed the false nihilists. The article provides a comparative analysis of the behavioral strategies of the protagonists of Chernyshevsky and Leskov who can be called &ldquo;real&rdquo; nihilists. The article also reconstructs the social ideal expressed in the novel &ldquo;No Way Out&rdquo;.<br /><strong>Research implications.</strong> The article reconstructs the social and political content of Nikolai Leskov&rsquo;s novel &ldquo;No Way Out&rdquo;, ideas about the &ldquo;real&rdquo; nihilists and the social ideal.</p></body></html>
ISSN:2224-0209