 The Circle was founded in St. Petersburg during student unrest in 1868-1869 as a group opposed to the reckless violence of Sergey Nechayev.A literary society for self-education within the Medical Surgical Academy was the heart of the organization, the initial purpose of which was to share books and knowledge that had been banned in the Russian Empire.It included students Mark Natanson, V. M. Aleksandrov, and Anatoly Serdyukov, who were joined by Nikolai Tchaikovsky and Feofan Lermontov.