Who is Vera Pavlovna in What Is to Be Done?

Vera (Viéra) Pavlovna is the center of Chernyshevsky’s domestic experiment. Pressured by a mother who treats marriage as sale, she chooses Lopukhov, later Kirsanov, organizes a sewing cooperative, and dreams the allegorical futures that carry the book’s politics.

She is not a passive symbol. The novel’s answer to its title runs through her choices and her dreams.