The Petrashevsky Circle was a Russian literary discussion group of progressive-minded commoner-intellectuals in St. Petersburg organized by Mikhail Petrashevsky, a follower of the French utopian socialist Charles Fourier. Among the members were writers, teachers, students, minor government officials, army officers. While differing in political views, most of them were opponents of the tsarist autocracy and the Russian serfdom. Among those connected to the circle were writers Dostoyevsky and Saltykov-Shchedrin, poets Pleshcheyev, Apollon Maikov, and Taras Shevchenko.
Like that of the Lyubomudry group founded earlier in the century, the purpose of the circle was to discuss Western philosophy (specifically Hegel) and literature which was officially banned by the Imperial government of Nicholas I.
Nicholas I, terrified by the prospect of revolutions of 1848 spreading to Russia, saw great danger in secret organisations like this. Members of the Circle in 1849 were arrested and imprisoned. Later a large group of prisoners (such as Fyodor Dostoyevsky) had to go through a symbolic 'execution ritual', which was an example of mock execution, on the St. Petersburg Semionov-Plaz. Death sentences then were reprieved; some of the sentenced went to serve their time to Siberia, some to prisons (Dostoyevsky's eight-year sentence was later reduced to four years by Nicholas I).
Read more about Petrashevsky Circle: Members of Assembly, Circles Close To Petrashevists, List of Petrashevists
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“There is all the difference in the world between departure from recognised rules by one who has learned to obey them, and neglect of them through want of training or want of skill or want of understanding. Before you can be eccentric you must know where the circle is.”
—Ellen Terry (1847–1928)