M. N. Katkov and N. N. Strakhov. The history of the relationship of two dissimilar thinkers

The article is devoted to the relationships between two eminent representatives of Russian Conservatism in the second half of the 19th century — Mikhail Katkov, the influential editor of the magazine The Russian Messenger and the newspaper Moscow News, and the philosopher, literary critic and scientist Nikolay Strakhov, a representative of the Native Soil movement. Their relations, varying from mutual interest, conservative ideological affinity and literary co-operation to unfriendly publications and even periods of confrontation, have never been an object of scholarly research. The article traces all the principal stages in their relationships: the start of correspondence in the early 1860s and attempts at co-cooperation; a conflict that led to the closing of the Dostoyevskys’ magazine Time; a new period of co-operation; temporary rupture owing to Katkov’s conflict with Leo Tolstoy because of the novel Anna Karenina; renewal of their literary co-operation aimed at resisting radical trends. A special emphasis is laid on a struggle against nihilism that brought these two notable representatives of conservatism together. The comparative analysis of their views is based on a wide range of literary works and epistolary sources.