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Nikolai Chernyshevsky (1828-1889) is a figure of monumental importance in Russia, still largely overlooked in the West, who made history as the author of What Is to Be Done? (1863). The novel intended to provide a “guide to life”, a model for young radicals to organize their daily lives, personal relations, and emotions. The idea of creating “new men” and “new women” for the new revolutionary age was born. And What Is to Be Done? indeed became a guide to life, with the fictional situations (marriages and adulteries, the establishment of communes) enacted in real life, with varied results. This fusion of “literature and reality”, with the one infecting the other, provides an ideal subject for a semiotic study of culture that shows the reciprocal relationship between the writer as a man and his age.In her book, translated into French for the first time, Paperno subjects the life and works of Chernyshevsky to intense scrutiny, showing the rise of the writer from specific historical conditions, social and psychological concerns shared by his milieu and generation, and prevailing literary codes. In the end, Paperno shows the transformation of the author's personal experience into the literary structure of such a novel that had the power to impact emotional life and behavior of the readers who shared his cultural situation. Nikolaï Tchernychevski (1828-1889), personnage d’une importance colossale en Russie, encore bien trop méconnu en Occident, est resté dans l’histoire comme l’auteur de Que faire ? (1863). Le roman prétendait fournir un « guide dans la vie », sur lequel les jeunes radicaux pourraient modeler leur vie quotidienne, leurs relations personnelles et leurs émotions. La volonté de créer des « hommes nouveaux » et des « femmes nouvelles » pour le nouvel âge révolutionnaire était née. Et Que faire ? devint bel et bien ce guide décrivant des situations fictionnelles (mariage et adultère, vie en communauté) qui furent mises en application dans la réalité, avec…

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https://www.openedition.org/12554