Reading Darwin in Imperial Russia

Andrew M. Drozd is associate professor of Russian at the University of Alabama. Brendan G. Mooney is fellow at the Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies and visiting assistant professor of Russian at Miami University of Ohio. Stephen M. Woodburn is professor of history at Southwestern College in Kansas.

Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species had a profound impact when published 1859, and it continues to influence scientific and cultural matters today. This thoughtful collection of essays explores the cultural effect of Darwin’s ideas in imperial Russia. Essays address the challenges of translating Darwin’s terminology into Russian and the varying interpretations of his concepts of “natural selection” and “survival of the fittest.” …. There are considerations of the reactions of conservatives and traditionalists who blamed Darwin for the social disruption of the 1860s and 1870s, which saw emancipation of the serfs, the expansion of women’s education, and the nihilist movements. For these writers, the European modernity associated with Darwin’s concepts threatened to undermine Russian nationalist identity and traditional values and needed to be challenged. Insightful and deeply informative, this collection sheds light on important intellectual developments in 19th-century Russia. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

• Introduction1.Brendan G. Mooney What’s in a Word?: A History of the Words “Evolution” and “Natural Selection” in Russian and of Kliment Timiriazev’s Legacy as a Translator and Popularizer of Darwinism2.James GoodwinAn Upheaval in Thinking Minds: Darwin’s Russian Reception as a Contextual Source in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment3.Brendan G. MooneyNikolai Strakhov on Darwinism: Humans, Progress, and Organicism4.Victoria Thorstensson Anti-Darwinism as Anti-Nihilism: The Conservative Response to Darwinism in Mikhail Katkov’s Russian Messenger and The Moscow News and Boleslav Markevich’s Pedagogical Romance Marina from Alyrog (1873)5.Stephen M. WoodburnNationality, Philosophy, and Science in Nikolai Danilevsky’s Critique of Darwinism 6.Charles Byrd Darwinism “Dressed in Russian State Uniform”: Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin's “The Predators” and Other Works7.Andrew M. Drozd An Attack from the Left: Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s Critique of Darwin8.Melissa L. Miller Learned Neighbors