Dmitry Pisarev

Dmitry Ivanovich Pisarev (14 October [O.S. 2 October] 1840 – 16 July [O.S. 4 July] 1868) was a Russian literary critic and philosopher who was a central figure of Russian nihilism. He is noted as a forerunner of Nietzschean philosophy, and for the impact his advocacy of liberation movements and natural science had on Russian history.

A critique of his philosophy became the subject of Fyodor Dostoevsky's celebrated novel Crime and Punishment. Indeed, Pisarev's philosophy embraces the nihilist aims of negation and value-destruction; in freeing oneself from all human and moral authority, the nihilist becomes ennobled above the common masses and free to act according to sheer personal preference and usefulness. These new types, as Pisarev termed them, were to be pioneers of what he saw as the most necessary step for human development, namely the reset and destruction of the existing mode of thought. Among his most famous locutions is: "What can be smashed must be smashed. Whatever withstands the blow is fit to survive; what flies into pieces is rubbish. In any case, strike out right and left, no harm can come of it."

Pisarev wrote most of his works while imprisoned. He was arrested for political crimes the year after graduating university and drowned only two years after his release, aged 27. It is unknown whether his death was accidental or suicide as he had also suffered severe mental health issues throughout his life. His works had a deep influence throughout Russia on revolutionaries such as Lenin, anti-nihilists such as Dostoevsky, and scientists such as the Nobel prize winner Ivan Pavlov.