The book attempts to demythologize one of the greatest thinkers in Russia, perhaps with the most tragic fate. The authorities gave him 20 years in Siberia, away not only from books and literary life, but away from simply developed people. From a reformer and gradualist, a brilliant thinker who returned the ideas of Christianity to Russia, in the guise of contemporary positivism, which few people saw, a writer who brought to life in Russia an ideological novel, according to Bakhtin, a man who never stooped to asking for clemency, with an incredible sense of personal dignity (and this is unacceptable in any autocratic regime), the authorities created the phantom of a revolutionary, which contributed to the development of those forces that Chernyshevsky opposed. Demons took the place of the reformer (using his moral capital of an innocently ruined person). “In this one truly remarkable biography, we approached the Tree of Life,” wrote Vasily Rozanov, “but we just cut it down.” For too long his name has nourished his opponents. It's time to see the bearer of this name in its authenticity, having disenchanted the phantom that evil fate gave him. The author tried to do this to the best of his ability. The publishing layout of the book was saved in PDF A4 format.