Nikolai Aleksandrovich Dobroliubov was one of the most influential Russian literary critics of the nineteenth century. His critical approach--which placed greater value on an accurate depiction of reality, rather than on any aesthetic consideration, and interpreted literature for its political or social message--was first developed by Vissarion Grigor'evich Belinsky in the preceding generation. Dobroliubov wrote at a time when censorship, though still harsh, was far less restrictive than in Belinsky's day, and he wrote as well for a far larger reading public. Between 1857 and 1861, as literary critic for the journal Sovremennik (The Contemporary), he exerted a profound influence over Russian letters. Fyodor Dostoevsky said of Dobroliubov that his reviews in Sovremennik were always the first thing people read at a time when hardly anyone bothered to read literary criticism. After Dobroliubov's early death in 1861 his writing continued to inspire successive generations of readers--especially the youth of Russia, for...