Nikolay Nikolayevich Strakhov, also transliterated as Nikolai Strahov , was a Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n philosopher, publicist

Publicist

A publicist is a person whose job is to generate and manage publicity for a public figure, especially a celebrity, a business, or for a work such as a book, film or album...

 and literary critic

Literary criticism

Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...

 who shared the ideals of pochvennichestvo

Pochvennichestvo

Pochvennichestvo was a late 19th century Russian nativist movement tied in closely with its contemporary ideology, the Slavophile movement...

. He was a long-time friend and correspondent of Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...

.

Nikolay Strakhov was born in Belgorod

Belgorod

-Twin towns/sister cities:Belgorod is twinned with: Wakefield, England, United Kingdom Herne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany Palembang, South Sumatra, Indonesia Opole, Poland Vyshhorod, Ukraine Kharkiv, Ukraine-External links:...

 in a priest family. In 1851 Nikolay Strakhov graduated from Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

 Main Pedagogical Institute and became a teacher in Odessa

Odessa

Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...

. In 1861 Nikolay Strakhov moved to Saint Petersburg and became a prominent publicist and literary critic. Nikolay Strakhov worked on the literary journals Time

Vremya (magazine)

Vremya was a monthly magazine published by Fyodor Dostoyevsky under the editorship of his brother Mikhail Dostoyevsky, as Fyodor himself, due to his status as a former convict, was unable to be the official editor.-Publication history:...

and Epoch

Epoch (Russian magazine)

Epoch was a Russian literary magazine published in 1864-65 by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and his brother Mikhail.-Publication history:The first two combined numbers of Epoch, for January and February, 1864, were published in March,1864, containing the opening chapters of Notes from Underground by Fyodor...

together with Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Apollon Grigoryev

Apollon Grigoryev

Apollon Aleksandrovich Grigoryev was a Russian poet, literary and theatrical critic, translator, memoirist, as well as the author of a number of popular songs and romances....

. He became one of the very few close friends of Leo Tolstoy.

In 1870s Nikolay Strakhov wrote his most famous philosophical work World as a Whole and was among the first (if not the first) to recognize Tolstoy's War and Peace

War and Peace

War and Peace is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in 1869. The work is epic in scale and is regarded as one of the most important works of world literature...

as one of the world's greatest novels. Nikolay Strakhov was also one of the most prominent opponents of Liberalism

Liberalism

Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

, Rationalism

Rationalism

In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...

 and Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is an ethical theory holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall "happiness", by whatever means necessary. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined only by its resulting outcome, and that one can...

 in Russia, who contributed greatly to the development of traditionalist Slavophile

Slavophile

Slavophilia was an intellectual movement originating from 19th century that wanted the Russian Empire to be developed upon values and institutions derived from its early history. Slavophiles were especially opposed to the influences of Western Europe in Russia. There were also similar movements in...

 ideology and its more conservative and nationalist variant known as Pochvennichestvo. In 1883 Nikolay Strakhov wrote The Struggle Against the West in Russian Literature where he supported ideas of Nikolay Danilevsky and claimed that Western European rationalism lacks scientific grounds.

Nikolay Strakhov supported and encouraged young Vasily Rozanov

Vasily Rozanov

Vasily Vasilievich Rozanov was one of the most controversial Russian writers and philosophers of the pre-revolutionary epoch. His views have been termed the "religion of procreation", as he tried to reconcile Christian teachings with ideas of healthy sex and family life and not, as his adversary...

 to become a writer and philosopher. Despite his conservatism and support for official government ideology of Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality he was at times criticized by pro-government publications such as Mikhail Katkov

Mikhail Katkov

Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov was a conservative Russian journalist influential during the reign of Alexander III.Katkov was born of a Russian government official and a Georgian noblewoman...

’s Moskovskie Vedomosti

Moskovskie Vedomosti

Moskovskiye Vedomosti was Russia's largest newspaper by circulation before it was overtaken by Saint Petersburg dailies in the mid-19th century.The newspaper was established by the Moscow University a year after its own foundation, in 1756...

. Russian liberals bitterly resented Nikolay Strakhov and considered him a reactionary

Reactionary

The term reactionary refers to viewpoints that seek to return to a previous state in a society. The term is meant to describe one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is "radical". While it has not been generally considered a term of praise it has been adopted as a self-description by...

philosopher.

Nikolay Strakhov died in Saint Petersburg in 1896; he never married and had no children.