Career
In 1862 with Nikolai Ogaryov he co-founded Obshcheye Veche, a newspaper which he edited for a short while. Among Kelsiyev"s more bizarre projects was his translation of the Bible, which he published in 1860, ", apparently, of bringing down what hundreds of millions see as a sacred Word of God, to the level of easy, controversial read," according to another Russky Vestnik review. In 1862 Kelsiyev illegally visited Russia to spend five week in the country among the revolutionaries and conspirators.
In the course of the so-called Process of the 32 in 1863 he was convicted (in absentia) to lifelong exile.
He surrendered to the authorities and wrote his Confessions (without giving away any names of his former revolutionary associates). The document impressed Tsar Alexander II enough to pardon Kelsiyev.
In his later life Kelsiev contributed mostly to the conservative press (Russky Vestnik, Zarya, Vsemirny Trud, Niva magazine) and in 1868 published his confessions under the title Perezhitoye i peredumannoye (Things I"ve Lived Through and Thought a Lot About), denounced by the left and praised by the right. Hertzen, who dedicated a chapter in his My Past and Thoughts to Kelsiyev, characterized him as a "religiously-minded nihilist" who "studied everything but learned nothing" and, "through his tireless struggle against all things conventional.. succeeded only in undermining his own moral ground.".