His influence rapidly grew and spread, particularly among the intellectual revolutionary-minded commoners. Each article of his was eagerly read and distributed in handwritten copies. Before long the authorities decided to cut short his activities, which, they realized, were highly dangerous to the tsarist regime. In the summer of 1862, Chernyshevsky was arrested and flung into a dungeon in the Fortress of Peter and Paul. In the fortress he produced his major work, the novel What Is To Be Done? which profoundly influenced the Russian public. After two years in the fortress, Chernyshevsky was sent to a penal camp in Siberia. It was only in 1883 that he was permitted to leave Siberia. He went to Astrakhan, where he lived for six years under police surveillance. In 1889 he returned to his native Saratov, where he died the same year.
]]>