Description: (Literary critic)
Vissarion Grigoryevich Belinsky was a Russian literary critic known for his Westernizing tendency. He influenced poet and publisher Nikolay Nekrasov and the magazine Sovremennik significantly. Belinsky focused on literary criticism due to less censorship compared to political writings and was influential among the younger generation. He valued society over individualism, supported the expression of individual ideas and rights, and opposed the role of Orthodoxy. Belinsky emphasized reason, knowledge, criticized autocracy, and theocracy.