Pyotr Lavrovich Lavrov was a prominent Russian theorist of narodism, philosopher, publicist, revolutionary, sociologist, and historian.

The Narodniks were members of a movement of the Russian Empire intelligentsia in the 1860s and 1870s, some of whom became involved in revolutionary agitation against tsarism. Their ideology, known as Narodism, Narodnism or Narodnichestvo, was a form of agrarian socialism, though it is often misunderstood as populism.