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Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky Today1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
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The centenary of the death of the Russian writer F. M. Dostoevsky (1821–81) is not merely an anniversary like any other, but a landmark in human history which deserves to be noted, observed and reflected upon. It is not just by chance that his novels and stories are still being read appreciatively, particularly by non-Russian speakers who have no background in Russian culture. Furthermore, it is not simply a desire to penetrate the secrets of the Russian heart, the peculiarities of the Russian character or the Russian style of life that creates their interest in his writings. Dostoevsky did of course reflect his own age and describe the situation in the Russia of his time, and it is valuable to study this aspect of his work. But it is not the whole. From the depth of his sensitive heart and with his prophetic finger this writer touched on something not exclusively Russian, but universal, global, even cosmic. He introduced philosophy and theology into a story in such a way that even a hundred years later everyone can find something familiar and personal in it, irrespective of his culture and language. He unearthed seeds which bore shoots many years later. He reflected in a Christian way on the crops and the future of what had been sown, and traced the mechanism of the historical process, not merely from the political and socio-economic point of view, but in human terms. This is probably the most significant feature of Dostoevsky's work.
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References
page 41 note 2 The Adolescent, Chapter 13, Part Two (Moscow, 1972), p. 558Google Scholar.
page 42 note 3 Brothers Karamazov, p. 554.
page 42 note 4 ‘Beauty will save the world’ — Hyppolitus said to Prince Mishkin: ‘Is it true, prince, what you say — that “beauty” will save the world?’, The Idiot, Vol. II, Part III. Paris 1943, p. 73Google Scholar. Later on, the opinions of Aglai, p. 239.
page 42 note 5 Bulgakov, Sergius, ‘Russian Tragedy’, in Quiet Thoughts. (YMCA Press, Paris, 1976)Google Scholar (from articles 1911–1915 (Moscow, 1918)).
page 42 note 6 Arsenev, Nikolai, Dostoevsky, Life with God (Brussels, 1972)Google Scholar.
page 42 note 7 Steiner, George, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky. An essay in contrast (London, 1959)Google Scholar.
page 43 note 8 Karamazov, Dmitri: ‘It is a terrible thing that beauty is not only frightening but also something mysterious. It is the devil fighting with God and the battlefield is people's hearts’. Brothers Karamazov. Life and Culture (Riga, 1928), Vol. I, p. 166Google Scholar.
page 43 note 9 See Brothers Karamazov — the Grand Inquisitor. Also The Idiot, Vol. II, p. 104. ‘Christ is a fearful corpse … The frightening force of nature.… How can one overcome it, when even He, Who was conquering nature throughout His life, to whom it submitted itself, did not overcome it … Nature and “the Creature”?’
page 44 note 10 See the discussion between Seraphim of Sarov and the merchant Motovilov.
page 44 note 11 The Idiot, Vol. II, pp. 165–7. ‘Ordinary People. They have a brain, but no ideas, no talent, no specialities, not even any eccentricity. They have a heart, but are not generous…. There are an extraordinary number of such people: they can be divided, like all people, into two main groups: some are limited, others “more intellectual”, the former are happier. To a “limited”, “mediocre” person there is, for example, nothing easier than to fancy himself to be an unusual, original person and indulge himself in this fancy without any qualms. Some of our young ladies have had their hair cut, wear blue glasses and call themselves nihilists. They believe that by wearing blue glasses they will soon acquire their own convictions.… For the majority of “the more intellectual”, it is not so tragic; all that happens is that in the end they ruin their liver. But, all the same, before humbling and subjugating themselves, these people sometimes play pranks for a long time, from their youth onwards, before age subdues them and all their desire for originality.… Never in their life have they any desire to humble themselves. … They can never, in their lifetime, find out what exactly they need to discover, what, in fact, they are waiting for their whole life: be it gunpowder or America. But, it is true, this yearning for discovery was also the fate of Columbus and Galileo.…’
page 44 note 12 See Nikolai Arsenev's articles.
page 46 note 13 The Possessed, dialogue between Kirillov and Stavrogin. See the edition of I. L. Lodizhnikov (Berlin 1921), Vol. I, p. 296.
page 47 note 14 The Possessed, Vol. II, p. 351. ‘Then something so hideous and rapid occurred that Pyotr Stepanovich could no longer marshal his thoughts in any sort of order. He had scarcely touched Kirillov when the latter suddenly bent his head and with his head knocked his candle out of his hand; the candlestick flew with a clatter to the floor and the candle went out. At that same instant he felt a terrible pain in the little finger of his left hand. He yelled and all he remembered was that, beside himself, he, with all his force, hit with his revolver the head of Kirillov which had fallen towards him and bitten his finger.’
page 48 note 15 See the article entitled ‘Poverty is not a vice, but a wolf to be kept from the door’ in CCPD Dossier No. 18, Christians’ Participation in Development in Socialist Contexts.
page 49 note 16 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Future of Man.
page 50 note 17 Notes from the House of the Dead (Berlin 1921), Vol. I, pp. 81ffGoogle Scholar.
page 50 note 18 In actual fact the problems of ‘poverty’, ‘spiritual poverty’, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’ and ‘spiritual impoverishment’ are complex. Three books on ‘The Church and the Poor’, published by CCPD (edited by Julio de Santa Ana), as well as the Melbourne Conference on ‘Your Kingdom Come’, have only touched on this complexity.
page 51 note 19 See Lebedyev's dissertation in The Idiot. ‘Show me the thought which binds humanity today.’ The Idiot, Vol. II, p. 64.
page 51 note 20 Humiliated and Insulted (Paris 1945), Vol. I, pp. 372–377Google Scholar.
page 52 note 21 The dialectics of personal feelings and social relationships are constantly present in Dostoevsky's works. For example, what is said of Elizabeth Nikolaevna in The Possessed: ‘Beneath her constant, sincere and utter hatred for you, there are sudden flashes of love and … insanity … the most sincere and boundless love and — insanity! On the other hand, in the love which she feels for me, also sincerely, there are sudden flashes of a hatred — of the most powerful kind!’ The Possessed, Vol. I, pp.52–3. (And what about the ocio-political context?)
page 52 note 22 The Possessed. See pp. 306–15 of the Russian version.
page 53 note 23 The Idiot, Vol. II, pp. 259–63.
page 53 note 24 The Possessed, discussion between Shatov and Stavrogin, Vol. I, pp. 306–15. The Idiot, Prince Mishkin's soliloquy, Vol. II, p. 263. The Adolescent, Versilov's opinion of the Russian nation, pp. 461–2.
page 53 note 25 Once more, Versilov's opinion of the Russian nation in The Adolescent: ‘pOver the years some sort of higher cultural type of person, never before seen, has been created, the like of which does not exist elsewhere in the world, — a type of universal scapegoat for all …’ A strange thing: ‘the Russian is the most Russian when he is the most European. In France I am French, in Germany, German, in Ancient Greece, Greek, yet at the same time very Russian (p. 462). ‘Universal scapegoat’ is a characteristic expression, used in connexion with the Russian character.
page 54 note 26 See Brothers Karamazov, Vol. I, pp. 445–6. This picture of the Orthodox liturgy is useful for a better understanding of ‘orthodox spirituality’, where there is much about the spiritualisation of the material.
page 54 note 27 And it may be that that ‘old woman's’ religion is also genuine. Sec, for example, in Brothers Karamazov the episode of the ‘six grivens (coins)’. In The Possessed a certain Barbara Petrovna says: ‘ … pleasure from charity is arrogant and immoral pleasure.… Charity corrupts both the donor and the recipient and most of all does not achieve its goal, because it merely reinforces beggary. Lazy people, who do not want to work, crowd around donors like gamblers around a gaming table, hoping to win.… Charity must be forbidden by law in society today. In the new order there will be no poor at all’ (Vol. I, p. 420). Yes, Barbara Petrovna is probably right, especially if one thinks about today's relief programmes for the Third World, including those of the World Council of Churches. But there is another ‘old woman's’ psychology of charity, in Brothers Karamazov, which is like the widow's mite blessed by Christ… ‘yesterday's six griven … given them to her, for she is poorer than I.…’ Dostoevsky explains: ‘Such sacrifices are tokens, willingly given for some reason or other, and always taken from money earned by one's own labour.’ (How easy it is to do, without thinking!) Brothers Karamazov, Vol. I, p. 435. Where, then, is the qualitative difference between what Barbara Petrovna says, and what the unknown ‘old woman’ does?
page 55 note 28 Brothers Karamazov, Vol. I, pp. 259–60.
page 56 note 29 Brothers Karamazov. Alyosha Karamazov's diary: ‘The Life of the starets Zossima, the late Father Superior, at Boz’, Vol. I, pp. 439–96.
page 56 note 30 The Possessed. Said by an ‘old lady’: ‘How can one conceive of the Mother of God?’ ‘As the Great Mother, I say, the hope of the human race’.… ‘So’, she says, ‘the Mother of God is the Great Mother earth, great because it contains joy for mankind. And each earthly yearning and each earthly tear has a joy for us; and as we suffuse the earth deep down with our tears, we immediately become glad about everything. And our grief no longer exists, that is prophecy’ (Vol. I, pp. 178–9).
page 56 note 31 See the chapter in Brothers Karamazov entitled ‘A sceptical lady’. Zossima gives her a lesson which she finds difficult to assimilate. The talk is about ‘visionary and active’ love. In the words of Zossima: ‘Visionary love hungers to perform feats which give rapid returns and which everyone can see.… Active love, however, is work and self-control and for some people is, perhaps, a science in itself.… Active love by comparison with visionary love is a cruel and frightening thing’ (Vol. I, pp. 85–8).