Belinsky, Vissarion (Grigoryevich)

(born May 30, 1811, Sveaborg, Fin., Russian Empire—died May 26, 1848, St. Petersburg, Russia) Russian literary critic. Expelled from the University of Moscow in 1832, he worked as a journalist, making his reputation with critical articles that expounded nationalist doctrine. His argument that literature should express political and social ideas had a major impact on Soviet literary criticism, and he was often called the father of the Russian radical intelligentsia.

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica