Ivan Turgenev actually coined the term 'nihilist' in his 1862 novel Father's and Sons, so I would highly recommend that as well.
In Russia specifically around that time, nihilism was all about removing the institutions of the old patriarchal order, especially serfdom, which the nihilists believed was holding the country back. But the novel was criticised severely by some of the nihilists because they thought that Turgenev's nihilist hero Bazarov was a bad reflection on their ideas (more specifically that he'd suggested a lack of them!), and that he'd damaged their cause for Russia's progress. To Turgenev negation was more about removing the old to make way for progress, rather than negation for it's own sake.
It's an excellent book about these ideas and is also beautifully written. His writing is very simple and elegant in comparison to some of the other Russian authors.
