Talk:What Is to Be Done? (novel)

message: The statement "Within the framework of a story of a privilegied couple who decide to work for the revolution, and ruthlessly subordinate everything in their lives to the cause, the work furnished a blueprint for the asceticism and dedication unto death which became an ideal of the early socialist underground of the Russian Empire." is at least highly controversial. In no way do the main characters of the book, i.e. Vera Pavlovna and Lopukhov, work for the revolution - in fact, all Vera Pavlovna does is establishing co-operative society for seamstresses. The novel praised the marriage with equal rights for a husband and a wife - although it was considered "nihilist" by some retrograds at the time, in no way can it be named "revolutionary". The character who really "subordinated everything in his life to the cause", Rakhmetov, is not the one who personifies Chernyshevsky's ideals - that's a common view of contemporary critics. However, this character did influence Lenin a lot. Kollfan 20:41, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If that's not what the novel is about, then what is it about? You seem to know better than whoever wrote this. Please tell us.Ileanadu (talk) 02:35, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: False interpretations

message: The article's introduction states that this novel is a "response to Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev." How so? What in Fathers & Sons is this novel responding to? Or is it just a personal response by the author to Turgenev's work? Ileanadu (talk) 02:40, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  How a Response to Fathers & Sons? 

message: Is the title a Biblical reference - to Luke 3:10-14? Shto delat'? ("What is to be done?" or "What Shall We Do?") 
:Luke: 10 And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” 11 And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics[a] is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” 12 Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” 13 And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” 14 Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”
At least according to the article What Is to Be Done? (Tolstoy) this is an intentional reference. Since Chernyshevsky's work came first, did he intend the reference? Ileanadu (talk) 03:14, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is title a biblical reference? 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on What Is To Be Done? (novel). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070908032537/http://www.realc.emory.edu/russian/DOSTOEVSKY/Chernishevsky.html to http://realc.emory.edu/russian/DOSTOEVSKY/Chernishevsky.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 21:34, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified