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Loose and Baggy Spirits: Reading Dostoevskii and Mendeleev

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Michael D. Gordin
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Abstract

In his 1876 Writer’s Diary, novelist Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevskii wrote a series of three journalistic articles parodying both the contemporary movement of modern spiritualism and its principal critic in St. Petersburg, noted chemist Dmitrii Ivanovich Mendeleev. This article explores Dostoevskii’s views on spiritualism and examines the rhetorical strategy he developed to help persuade Russians away from what he perceived as a dangerous mystical fad. Mendeleev had similar goals, but the two differed on the urgency of the problem—and hence the proper rhetoric for the task—and thus both spent as much time fighting the other as the movement they deplored. This article endeavors both to analyze a Russian scientific text alongside works traditionally considered more “rhetorical“ and to explore in detail the specific involvement of Dostoevskii the journalist with contemporary issues in Russian culture.

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Articles
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Slavic Review , Volume 60 , Issue 4 , Winter 2001 , pp. 756 - 780
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Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2001

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References

I would like to acknowledge the helpful comments and criticisms of Mario Biagioli, Peter Galison, Karl Hall, William Mills Todd III, and the anonymous referees for Slavic Review. A preliminary version of dhs paper was presented at the conference "Rethinking Science and Civilization: The Ideologies, Disciplines, and Rhetorics of World History," Stanford University, 21-23 May 1999. The epigraph is taken from Vyacheslav Ivanov, Freedom and the Tragic Life: A Study in Dostoevsky, trans. Norman Cameron (Wolfeboro, N.H., 1989), 21.

1 Genre is an important category in studies of the Diary,best analyzed by Saul Morson, Gary See The Boundaries of Genre: Dostoevsky’s Diary of a Writer and the Traditions of Literary Utopia(Evanston, 1981);Google Scholar “Reading Between the Genres: Dostoevsky’s Diary of a Writer as Metafiction,” Yale Review 68 (1978): 224–34; and “Dostoevski]’s Writer’s Diaryas Literature of Process,” Russian Literature4 –1 (1976): 1–14. Less successful have been the attempts to see the Diaryas belonging to Dostoevskii’s idiosyncratic Zapiskigenre or reading the Diaryas a combination of eighteenth-century epistolary journals and the nineteenthcentury confessional novel. For the first see Yuri Kudryavtsev, “Dostoevsky and His ‘Diary of a Writer,’” Melbourne Slavic Studies8 (1973): 58–63, and for the second L. S. Dmitrieva, “O zhanrovom svoeobrazii ‘Dnevnika Pisatelia’ Dostoevskogo, F. M. (Kprobleme tipologii zhurnala),” Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta,ser. 11, no. 6 (1969): 25–35.Google Scholar

2 There were good financial reasons for initiating it in this format. As Dostoevskii’s wife recalled, he obtained a steady salary from Grazhdaninas its editor and was paid in addition for any entries of the Diary that he published, thus turning the Diaryinto a moneymaking venture while drumming up interest for its realization as a self-standing monthly. Koteliansky, S. S., ed. and trans., Dostoevsky Portrayed by His Wife: The Diary and Reminiscences of Mme. Dostoevsky(New York, 1926), 141–42.Google Scholar

3 The best secondary source on both the publication history and some of the poetics of the Diaryremains the programmatic article by Tunimanov, V A., “Publitsistika Dostoevskogo. ’Dnevnik Pisatelia,’” in Dostoevskii—Khudozhnik i myslitel’: Sbornik statei(Moscow, 1972), 165–209.Google Scholar For Dostoevskii’s tangles with the censors, see I. L. Volgin, “Dostoevskii i tsarskaia tsenzura (K istorii izdaniia ‘Dnevnika Pisatelia’),” Russkaia literatura,1970, no. 4: 106–20; and on the hostile reception of the first issue by literary critics, see Volgin, , Dostoevskii—Zhurnalist: “Dnevnik Pisatelia“i russkaia obshchestvennost’(Moscow, 1982);Google Scholar and Volgin, , “’Dnevnik Pisatelia’: Tekst i kontekst,” in Fridlender, G. M., ed., Dostoevskii: Materialyiissledovaniia (Leningrad, 1978), 3:151–58.Google Scholar See also Grishin, D. V, Dnevnik PisateliaF. M. Dostoevskogo(Melbourne, 1966);Google Scholar and the relevant chapters in Igor’ Volgin, , Poslednii god Dostoevskogo: Istoricheskie zapiski(Moscow, 1986).Google Scholar

4 There is still no complete biography of Mendeleev in any language. The best remains Figurovskii, Nikolai A.,Dmitrii Ivanovich Mendeleev, 1834–1907(Moscow, 1961).Google Scholar

5 The Russian term for the movement, spiritizm,is perhaps more felicitously translated “spiritism,” but I have opted throughout to translate it as “spiritualism.” The Russian term comes from the French spiritisme,which primarily refers to the doctrines of the school of the French mystic Allan Kardec, who emphasized active spirit involvement in everyday life and reincarnation. The Russian movement, however, was much more heavily influenced by Anglo-American spiritualism, which emphasized psychic energy and physical effects and was more likely to entertain a scientific agnosticism.

6 Engels, Friedrich, Dialektik derNatur(Berlin, 1952), 48–49.Google Scholar

7. Glatzer Rosenthal, Bernice, “Political Implications of the Early Twentieth-Century Occult Revival,” in Rosenthal, , ed., The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture(Ithaca, 1997), 379–418.Google Scholar

8 The exception is Volgin, I. L. and Rabinovich, V L., “Dostoevskii i Mendeleev: Antispiriticheskii dialog,” Voprosy filosofii,1971, no. 11:103–15Google Scholar, translated as “Dostoevsky and Mendeleev: An Antispiritist Dialogue,” Soviet Studies in Philosophy,1972, no. 11:170–94. The remaining studies on this topic undercut Dostoevskii’s role as an active polemicist: Berry, Thomas E., “Dostoevsky and Spiritualism,“ Dostoevsky Studies 2 (1981): 43–49;Google Scholar Carlson, Maria, “Fashionable Occultism: Spiritualism, Theosophy, Freemasonry, and Hermeticism in Fin–de-Siecle Russia,” in Rosenthal, , ed., Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture,137;Google Scholar Rawson, Don C., “Mendeleev and the Scientific Claims of Spiritualism,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 122 (1978): 1–8;Google Scholar and Rice, Richard E., “Mendeleev’s Public Opposition to Spiritualism,” Ambix 45 (1998): 85–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Throughout I use the word rhetoricto refer to the set of technical devices an author employs to generate a specific effect within the audience, as explicated by Booth, Wayne C., The Rhetoric of Fiction,2d ed. (1961; reprint, Chicago, 1983);Google Scholar and Booth, A Rhetoric of Irony (Chicago, 1974). Booth’s emphasis on the moral pressure rhetoric can exert on an audience is especially important to my argument. There is a surprising paucity of analytical literature on the question of tone in literature, die central question of this essay. A fascinating approach to analyzing an author’s “point of view” using the construction of a text is offered in Uspenskii, Boris A., Poetika kompozitsii: Struktura khudozhestvennogo teksta i tipologiia kompozitsionnoiformy(Moscow, 1970), esp. 16–17.Google Scholar

10 For one example, see Kostalevsky, Marina, Dostoevsky and Soloviev: The Art of Integral Vision(New Haven, 1997), 137.Google Scholar

11 The few studies of this topic remain only preliminary and focus generally on the medical and life sciences. See Rice, James L., Dostoevsky and the Healing Art: An Essay in Literary and Medical History(Ann Arbor, 1985);Google Scholar Lewis, B. E., “Darwin and Dostoevsky,” Melbourne Slavic Studies 11 (1976): 23–32;Google Scholar Katz, Michael R., “Dostoevsky and Natural Science,“ Dostoevsky Studies 9 (1989): 63–76;Google Scholar and Iaroshevskii, M. G., “Dostoevskii i ideino-filosofskie iskaniia russkikh estestvoispytatelei,” Voprosy filosofii,1982, no. 2:103–13.Google Scholar Liza Knapp has proposed the intriguing but not entirely convincing diesis that Dostoevskii sought in his novels to provide an alternative metaphysics to die Newtonian worldview by engaging with scientific doctrines. Knapp, , The Annihilation of Inertia: Dostoevsky and Metaphysics(Evanston, 1996).Google Scholar There has also been some debate concerning whether Dostoevskii actually engaged in non-Euclidean geometry in Brothers Karamazov.See Knapp, Liza, “The Fourth Dimension of the Non-Euclidean Mind: Time in Brothers Karamazov or Why Ivan Karamazov’s Devil Does Not Carry a Watch,” Dostoevsky Studies 8 (1987): 105–20;Google Scholar and Oenning Thompson, Diane E., “Poetic Transformations of Scientific Facts in Brat’ja Karamazovy,” Dostoevsky Studies 8 (1987): 73–91 Google Scholar, esp. the appendix, “Note on Non-Euclidean Geometry.“

12 The now-standard five-volume biography of Dostoevskii by Joseph Frank is the most sustained work in this direction. Regrettably, the volume that would cover Dostoevskii’s encounter with Mendeleev has not yet appeared: Dostoevsky: The Seeds of Revolt, 1821- 1849(Princeton, 191/’6); Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1850-1859(Princeton, 1983);Dostoevsky: The Stir of Liberation, 1860-1865(Princeton, 1986); and Dostoevsky: The Miraculous Years, 1865–1871(Princeton, 1995).

13 Oppenheim, Janet, The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850–1914(Cambridge, Eng., 1985);Google Scholar Carroll, Bret E., Spiritualism in Antebellum America (Bloomington, 1997);Google Scholar Barrow, Logie, Independent Spirits: Spiritualism and English Plebeians, 1850–1910(London, 1986);Google Scholar and Gauld, Alan, TheFounders of Psychical Research(London, 1968).Google Scholar

14 Given that the bulk of Russian spiritualists were located in Petersburg and that both Dostoevskii and Mendeleev lived there as well, I will speak of “Russian” spiritualism only in terms of its cultural location in that city. The recent collection edited by Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture,has done much to articulate the diversity in occult movements during this period. On the publications of the spiritualists and other occult movements in this period, see the bibliographic essays by Edward Kasinec and Robert H. Davis, Jr., “Russian Occult Journalism of the Early Twentieth Century and Emigration,“ 419–23; and Maria Carlson and Robert H. Davis, Jr., “Russian Occult Journals and Newspapers,” 423–49, both in Rosenthal, Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture.

15 Hardinge Britten, Emma, Nineteenth Century Miracles; or, Spirits and Their Work in Every Country oftheEarth(New York, 1884), 353.Google Scholar

16 Nikolajewitsch Aksakow, Alexander, Animismus und Spiritismus: Versuch einer kritischen Priifung der mediumistischen Phanomene mit besonderer Beriicksichtigung der Hypothesen der Halluzination und des Unbewussten,2 vols. (Leipzig, 1919).Google Scholar

17 A selection of the spiritualist books in Dostoevskii’s personal library: R. Gera, Experimental Researches on Spiritualism(1862); William Crookes, Spiritualism and Science: Experimental Researches on the Psychic Force(1872); and Aksakov’s, A. N. Russian translations of Emanuel Swedenborg’s The Gospel according to Swedenborg: Five Chapters of the Gospel of John with an Exposition and Discussion of Their Spiritual Meaning according to the Teaching on Correspondences (Leipzig, 1864)Google Scholar, On Heaven, the World of Spirits and on Hell, as They Were Seen and Heard by Swedenborg,trans, from Latin (Leipzig, 1863), and The Rationalism of Swedenborg: A Critical Analysis of His Teaching on the Holy Writ(Leipzig, 1870). See Berry, “Dostoevsky and Spiritualism,” 45; and Czeslaw Milosz, “Dostoevsky and Swedenborg,” Slavic Review34, no. 2 (June 1975): 302–18. Although Dostoevskii clearly disagreed with Swedenborg on religious grounds, Milosz and others have noted Swedenborgian resonances in some of his more nightmarish imagery: Donald Fanger, Dostoevsky and Romantic Realism: A Study of Dostoevsky in Relation to Balzac, Dickens, and Gogol(1965; reprint, Evanston, 1998), 225; and Feuer Miller, Robin, “Dostoevsky’s ‘The Dream of a Ridiculous Man’: Unsealing die Generic Envelope,” in Cheresh Allen, Elizabeth and Saul Morson, Gary, eds., Freedom and Responsibility in Russian Literature: Essays in Honor of Robert Louis Jackson(Evanston, 1995), 90.Google Scholar

18 Strakhov also corresponded with Mendeleev and provided a link between Dostoevskii and the chemist during this period. See Gerstein, Linda, Nikolai Strakhov(Cambridge, Mass., 1971).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Dostoevskii to Anna Dostoevskaia, letter 579, 29 May (10 June) 1875, Ems, Dostoevskii, F. M., Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v tridtsati tomakh(Leningrad, 1972–1990;Google Scholar hereafter PSS),29(ii):32; translation from Fyodor Dostoevsky, Complete Letters,Volume 4,1872–1877, ed. and trans. David A. Lowe (Ann Arbor, 1991; hereafter CL4), 222. There is sporadic correspondence with Vagner from 4 December 1875 (letter 597) to 26 January 1877 (letter 666). As a sign of friendship, Dostoevskii announced Svet,a semi-spiritualist journal edited by Vagner, in his Diary;the announcement caused some bad press and is the topic of the last letter between the two.

20 Dostoevskii to Nikolai Vagner, 21 December 1875, Petersburg (letter 600), PSS, 29(H) :68; translation from CLA,265. V Pribytkova, the wife of the future editor of the Russian spiritualist journal Rebus,recalled that Dostoevskii had a “negative attitude” toward spiritualism, although “he criticized those people who simply mocked and laughed at spiritualism in public.” V. P[ribytko]va, “Vospominaniia o Dostoevskom/’/tefau, 1885, no. 2 5 – 26:230–31, 240–41. Pribytkova saw Dostoevskii as an unconscious spiritualist, who did not want to admit the reality of the effects before him. A penetrating contemporary criticism of her account pointed out that even had Dostoevskii wantedto believe, his metaphysical objections would have prevented it. German, A., “Po povodu stat’i ‘Vospominaniia o Dostoevskom,’“ Rebus,1885, no. 38:343–45.Google Scholar

21 On Claire, see Dostoevskii to Vagner, 2 January 1876, Petersburg, (letter 602), PSS,29(h):70; CL4,267. Also present at the seance was literary figure N. S. Leskov. His public report of the seance was quite positive, although he remarked on Dostoevskii’s skepticism. Leskov, N., “Pis’mo v redaktsiiu: Mediumicheskii seans 13–go fevralia,” Grazhdanin, 19 February 1876, no. 9:254–56.Google Scholar Although Leskov claimed he was not a spiritualist, Aksakov had been in contact with him for some years on this topic, and Aksakov was impressed by much in Leskov’s poetry that touched on “one of the basic dogmas of contemporary spiritualism!” Aksakov to Leskov, 12June 1872, Pushkinskii dom, f. 612, d. 232, 11. 1–lob.

22 All quotations from the Diaryare from the recent translation by Kenneth Lantz, modified occasionally for style in accordance with PSS:Fyodor Dostoevsky, A Writer’s Diary, volume 1, 1873–1876,and volume 2, 1877–1881,trans. Kenneth Lantz (Evanston, 1994; hereafter Lantz edition).

23 Ibid., 333; PSS,22:32.

24 Lantz edition, 333–34; PSS,22:32–33.

25 Lantz edition, 336–37; PSS,22:34–35.

26 Lantz edition, 338, PSS,22:36. Henry S. Olcott was an American agriculturist who had publicly criticized spiritualism but later converted. Sir William Crookes is an even more renowned case. After investigating the mediumistic abilities of D. D. Home and other mediums, Crookes declared himself convinced of the spirit world, a startling admission from a celebrated chemist. See Medhurst, R. G., ed., Crookes and the Spirit World: A Collection of Writings by or concerning the Work of Sir William Crookes, O.M., F.R.S., in theField of Psychical Research (New York, 1972).Google Scholar

27 Lantz edition, 338–39; PSS,22:36–37, emphasis added.

28 Lantz edition, 420; PSS,22:99.

29 Lantz edition, 421; PSS,22:100.

30 Lantz edition, 422; PSS,22:100–101. Pribytkova recalls that, in her presence, Dostoevskii attacked spiritualism as “mysticism.” Pribytkova, “Vospominaniia o Dostoevskom,“ 241. Volgin and Rabinovich misread Dostoevskii’s opposition to spiritualism as an attempt to “rationalize” and “empiricize” the soul through mechanist psychology. Volgin and Rabinovich, “Dostoevskii i Mendeleev.” This is explicitly notthe position Dostoevskii defends in the text, where he rejects spiritualism as a religion,and on the grounds that mysticism is dangerous and unholy.

31 Dostoevskii’s underground man comments: “But good God! what have the laws of nature and arithmetic to do with me, when for some reason I don’t like those laws or twice two? Naturally I shan’t break through the wall with my head, if I’m really not strong enough, but I won’t be reconciled to it simply because it’s a stone wall and I haven’t enough strength to break it down.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground,trans. Jessie Coulson (London, 1972), 23. This theme is also explicit in Dostoevskii’s TheDemonsand implicit in the other works of his mature period. Jones, Malcolm V., Dostoyevsky: The Novel of Discord (New York, 1976), 25;Google Scholar Knapp, , Annihilation of Inertia,116.Google Scholar

32 Considering the circle of individuals that both knew fairly well (Aksakov, Strakhov, Vagner), it is surprising that there was so little personal contact between the two men. I have been unable to locate any correspondence between them in Mendeleev’s personal archive at St. Petersburg University, although Dostoevskii did send a complimentary copy of a book to Mendeleev’s sister, E. I. Kapustina, long before either man was interested in spiritualism. See the excerpt of Kapustina’s 4 January 1862 letter to Dostoevskii in PSS, 30(ii):268. The only physical meeting I have found took place substantially after the jabs in the 1876 Diary.Supposedly, on the day of Dostoevskii’s burial, Mendeleev lectured to his chemistry class for over an hour on the importance of Dostoevskii for Russian literature, although no transcript or notes remain from this event. Dobrotin, R. B. and Karpilo, N. G., Biblioteka D. I. Mendeleeva(Leningrad, 1980), 149.Google Scholar

33 Lantz edition, 458; PSS,22:127, emphasis in the original. This argument against attempts to understand faith rationally has a long life among Dostoevskii’s associates. Vladimir Solov’ev, Dostoevskii’s friend and an influential religious philosopher, propounded similar arguments. Kostalevsky, , Dostoevsky and Soloviev,146.Google Scholar Nikolai Strakhov also wrote to Lev N. Tolstoi in December 1875 along similar lines: “I suppose that spiritualism is part of our desire for the irrational, but it seeks irrationalism in thewrong place.“ Quoted in Gerstein, , Nikolai Strakhov,163.Google Scholar

34 Lantz edition, 459–60; PSS,22:128.

35 Lantz edition, 460–61; PSS,22:129–30, emphasis in the original.

36 Lantz edition, 462, 464; PSS,22:130, 132. Some clerics endorsed spiritualism as a way to bring individuals back to the church. Dostoevskii disagreed vehemendy: “I have been told, among other things, that some of our clergy have rejoiced in aspects of spiritism—it allegedly inspires faith, for the appearance of ghosts at least comprises a protest against the universal materialism. What reasoning! No, pure atheism would be better than spiritism!” Pushkinskii dom, f. 100, No. 29479, SSKhb.12, as quoted in Volgin and Rabinovich, “Dostoevsky and Mendeleev,” 189–90.

37 Examples of excellent analysis in this fashion are Louis Jackson, Robert, The Art of Dostoevsky: Deliriums and Nocturnes(Princeton, 1981), chaps. 9–12;Google Scholar and Miller, “Dostoevsky’s ’Dream of a Ridiculous Man.’“

38 For an attempt to use the Diaryfor biography, see Frank, Dostoevsky: The Seeds of Revolt,70. Malcolm Jones has correcdy noted the dangers of attempts to use the Diaryto “unlock” the novels. See Jones, , Dostoyevsky after Bakhtin: Readings in Dostoyevsky’s Fantastic Realism(Cambridge, Eng., 1990), xvi.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Bracketing spiritualism, one can consider the Diaryas a dialogue with the journalism, philosophy, and literature of Russian thinker Aleksandr Herzen, an important intellectual influence on Dostoevskii. Herzen’s “novel” about the 1848 revolutions, From the Other Shore,formed a template for the structure of the Diary.See Nina Perlina, “Vozdeistvie gertsenskogo zhurnalizma na arkhitektoniku i polifonicheskoe stroenie Dnevnika pisatelia Dostoevskogo,” Dostoevsky Studies5 (1989): 141–55; Aileen Kelly, “Irony and Utopia in Herzen and Dostoevsky: From the Other Shoreand Diary of a Writer,” Russian Review50, no. 4 (October 1991): 397–416; and A. S. Dolinin, “Dostoevskii i Gertsen (K izucheniiu obshchestvenno-politicheskikh vozzrenii Dostoevskogo),” in Dolinin, , Dostoevskii i drugie: Stat’i i issledovaniia o russkoi klassicheskoi literature(Leningrad, 1989), 101–62.Google Scholar

40 Dostoevskii to Mikhail Pogodin, 26 February 1873 (letter 471), PSS29(i):263–64; translation from CL4,63, emphasis in the original.

41 Dostoevskii’s focus on the low-class aspects of spiritualism can be contrasted with Lev Tolstoi’s approach in Anna Kareninaand Plody Prosveshcheniia(The fruits of enlightenment), where spiritualism is seen as a disease of effete elites. I would like to thank William Todd for emphasizing this point.

42 Goldstein, David I., Dostoyevsky and the Jews(Austin, 1981), 50.Google Scholar

43 Saul Morson, Gary, “Introductory Study,” in Dostoevsky, A Writer’s Diary,1:43 and 54.Google Scholar

44 As Dostoevskii writes in his personal notes for the March article: “On spiritualism and about how it is deeper than the lectures of Mendeleev and that its depth lies in the instability of contemporary people, etc…. Here is the search for moral pacification upon the loss of religion—and that’s where the true depth is.” PSS,24:158–59, emphasis in the original.

45 Letter dated 17 December 1877, Petersburg (letter 722), PSS,29(ii):179; translation from CL4, 400.

46 Belknap, Robert L., “The Rhetoric of an Ideological Novel,” in Mills Todd, William III, ed., Literature and Society in Imperial Russia, 1800–1914(Stanford, 1978), 197– 223.Google Scholar See also Belknap, The Structure of The.Brothers Karamazov (The Hague, 1967). Linda Kraeger and Joe Barnhart use the opposite analytic strategy to provide a rational reconstruction of Dostoevskii’s religious arguments (expressed largely by Zosima) against the Inquisitor. See Kraeger, and Barnhart, , Dostoevsky on Evil and Atonement: The Ontology ofPersonalism in His Major Fiction(Lewiston, Me., 1992).Google Scholar

47 A specific example from the Grand Inquisitor’s monologue reads: “But did you not know that as soon as man rejects miracles then he simultaneously rejects God, because man is not looking for God so much as for miracles. And since man is hopeless without miracles, he will create new miracles for himself, will turn to sorcery and witchcraft, even though otherwise he may be a rebel, a heretic, and an atheist.” PSS,14:233. The strong case for the spiritualism articles being the basis for the Inquisitor’s claim is made in Tunimanov, “Publitsistika Dostoevskogo,” 199; D. V. Grishin, Dostoevskii— Chelovek, pisatel’ i mify: Dostoevskii i ego “DnevnikPisatelia”(Melbourne, 1978), 100, 241; and Vasily Rozanov,Dostoevsky and the Legend of the Grand Inquisitor,trans. Spencer E. Roberts (Ithaca, 1972), 50. Robert Belknap notes that the scientific “materialism” attacked in The Brothers Karamazov was in part drawn from Dostoevskii’s view of Mendeleev, but he does not clarify what kind of materialism Mendeleev stood for or the link to the Grand Inquisitor. Belknap, Robert L., The Genesis of The Brothers Karamazov: The Aesthetics, Ideology, and Psychology of Text Making (Evanston, 1990), 34 and 140.Google Scholar

48 Mikhail Bakhtin, in his immensely influential interpretation of Dostoevskii, specifically exempts the Diaryfrom any polyphony, except for the fictional inserts. Bakhtin, Mikhail, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics,ed. and trans. Emerson, Caryl (Minneapolis, 1984), 91, 95, 166.Google Scholar For a analogical reading of the journalism, see Charles A. Moser, “Dostoevsky and the Aesthetics of Journalism,” Dostoevsky Studies3 (1982): 27–41, and the work of Gary Saul Morson.

49 Lantz edition, 953–54; PSS,25:13. Morson notes that in the prophecies of the ridiculous man and the millenarian diarist one finds many resonances widi Dostoevskii’s tales of failed or misguided religions, like spiritualism, although he does not make much of it. Morson, , Boundaries of Genre,182;Google Scholar and Morson, “Introductory Study,” 68.

50 PSS,10:112.

51 PSS,13:424–25.

52 Letter 612, PSS,29(ii):78; translation from CL4,277.

53 Letter 631, dated 16 (28) July 1876, Ems, PSS,29(ii):101–2; translation from CIA: 305, emphasis in the original.

54 Bakhtin, “Discourse in the Novel,” The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays,ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Michael Holquist and Caryl Emerson (Austin, 1981), 351. This point is echoed by Gary Saul Morson and Caryl Emerson, “Introduction: Rethinking Bakhtin,“ in Morson, and Emerson, , eds., Rethinking Bakhtin: Extensions and Challenges(Evanston, 1989), 47;Google Scholar and in Thompson, “Poetic Transformations of Scientific Facts in Brat’ja Karamazovy,“ 73.

55 Mendeleev, Dmitrii I., Sochineniia,25 vols. (Leningrad, 1934–1956), 24:186, 204.Google Scholar For a detailed chronology of Mendeleev’s daily activities in this period, see Storonkin, A. V., ed., Letopis’ zhizni i deiatel’nosti D. I. Mendeleeva(Leningrad, 1984), 154–60.Google Scholar

56 Mendeleev, , Sochineniia,24:187, 189.Google Scholar

57 For an account of these séances by both the pro–Mendeleev and pro-spiritualist sides, respectively, see Makarenia, Aleksandr A. and Nutrikhin, Anatolii I., Mendeleev v Peterburge (Leningrad, 1982), 150;Google Scholar and Britten, , Nineteenth Century Miracles,355.Google Scholar Britten takes a dim view of Mendeleev, accusing him of having “passed judgment before they met at the first seance.“

58 For an amusing account of Mendeleev’s openly rude behavior at this particular seance, see that given by his daughter in Makarenia, Aleksandr A. and Filimonova, Irina N., eds., D. I. Mendeleev v vospominaniiakh sovremennikov(Moscow, 1969), 175.Google Scholar

59 Mendeleev, Dmitrii, ed., Materialy dlia suzhdeniia o spiritizme(St. Petersburg, 1876), 60.Google Scholar

60 Part of the reason the Materialyhave been so underutilized by scholars is that some of the most interesting aspects of book are not included in Mendeleev’s more widely available collected works, which include only the foreword and Mendeleev’s two public lectures.

61 Mendeleev, Materialy alia suzhdeniia o spiritizme,frontispiece.

62 Ibid., x. Mendeleev makes this connection again at the end of his second lecture.

63 On the “taming” of meteorology in the British case, see Anderson, Katherine, “The Weather Prophets: Science and Reputation in Victorian Meteorology,” History of Science (1999): 179–216;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Tucker, Jennifer, “Voyages of Discovery on Oceans of Air: Scientific Observation and the Image of Science in an Age of’Balloonacy,’” Osiris 11 (1996): 157–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

64 The first edition of the Principlesis almost devoid of footnotes, as more technical material was placed in smaller print for advanced students. In later editions, this technical material was moved into footnotes. Furthermore, as Mendeleev revised the text over the course of his lifetime—there were eight editions by his death in 1907— he heavily annotated the text with footnotes that not only added technical information but also provided updates on crucial chemical developments, such as the discovery of radioactivity or of the noble gases. In the Principles,footnotes were a solution to the problems of revision and also served to divide advanced readers from beginners. In the Materials,however, Mendeleev employed footnotes as necessarycompanions to the text, and (as there was only one edition) clearly did not serve as a revision device.

65 Mendeleev, Materialy dlia suzhdeniia o spiritizme,1.

66 One could also end up hoisted by one’s own petard. Aleksandr Aksakov, furious at the way Mendeleev treated his mediums during the official seances and upset at the tone of the Materials,republished the minutes of the commission with his own rhetoric of juxtapositions: he put his commentary in the text immediately following each sentence that he felt required exegesis. Aksakov, A., Razoblacheniia: Istoriia mediumicheskoi Kommisii Fizicheskago Obshchestva pri S.-Peterburgskom Universitete s prilozheniem vsekhprotokolov iprochikh dokumentov (St. Petersburg, 1883).Google Scholar He also published a separate pamphlet excerpting just his attack on the commission’s official conclusion: Pamiatnik nauchnogo predubezhdeniia: Zakliuchenie mediumicheskoi Kommisii Fizicheskago Obshchestva pri S.-Peterburgskom Universitete s primecheniiami(St. Petersburg, 1883).

67 This footnote in particular reflects the contrast in approach between the two. Mendeleev claimed that it was possible to be a spiritualist in spirit (po dukhu)like Dostoevskii, and to “believe in devils and reject spiritualist facts,” citing Dostoevskii’s January Diary as an example. Mendeleev, Materialy dlia suzhdeniia o spiritizme, S57n.The fact that he missed Dostoevskii’s irony is quite characteristic.

68 Jones,Dostoyevsky,esp. 14–15; Fernandez, Ronald, “Dostoyevsky, Traditional Domination, and Cognitive Dissonance,” SocialForces 49 (1970): 299–303.Google Scholar

69 PSS,21:248–51. On humor and satire as techniques in Dostoevskii’s work, see Busch, R. L., Humor in the Major Novels ofF. M. Dostoevsky(Columbus, 1987);Google Scholar and Petro, Peter, “Dostoevsky the Satirist,” Russian Language Journal 40 (1986): 95–102.Google Scholar

70 Frank, , Dostoevsky: The Miraculous Years,69.Google Scholar

71 Kostalevsky, , Dostoevsky and Soloviev,3.Google Scholar

72 PSS,24:292, emphasis in the original. Dostoevskii’s rhetorical strategy demanded that he tone down such inflammatory observations in the published Diary.

73 See Frank, , Dostoevsky: The Miraculous Years,500;Google Scholar Frank, , Dostoevsky: The Stir of Liberation, 51;Google Scholar and the intellectual history by Dowler, Wayne, Dostoevsky, Grigor’ev, and Native Soil Conservatism(Toronto, 1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

74 Dowler, , Dostoevsky, Grigor’ev, and Native Soil Conservatism,121;Google Scholar and Peace, Richard, “Dostoevsky and the Golden Age,” Dostoevsky Studies 3 (1982): 73.Google Scholar The best analysis of Dostoevskii’s belief that the artist can change society through aesthetics remains Louis Jackson, Robert, Dostoevsky’s Quest for Form: A Study of His Philosophy of Art,2d ed. (Bloomington, 1978);Google Scholar and Jackson, , “The Testament of F. M. Dostoevskij,” Russian Literature 4 (1973): 87–99.Google Scholar

75 Pribytkov, V., “Professor Mendeleev priznaet mediumicheskiia iavleniia,” Rebus, 1894, no. 1:3–4;Google Scholar and Aksakov, A. N., “Po povodu odnogo iz ‘pshikov’ professora Mendeleeva,“ Rebus,1894, no. 2:15–16.Google Scholar See also Carlson, , “Fashionable Occultism,” 138;Google Scholar and Carlson, Maria, “No Religion Higher Than Truth “: A History of the Theosophical Movement in Russia, 1875–1922(Princeton, 1993), 25.Google Scholar

76 The string still survives in Mendeleev’s archive.

77 I. Livchak, “Gg. Spiritam. Pis’mo v redaktsiiu,” Novoe vremia,25 January (6 February) 1879, no. 1045:4. Nikolai Vagner responded vigorously in “Otvet na pis’mo g. Livchaka. (Pis’mo v redaktsiiu),” Novoe vremia,7 (19) February 1879, no. 1058: 4. The Mendeleev quotation is from Mendeleev, D., “Spiriticheskie uzly,” Novoe vremia,18 (31) May 1904, no. 10132: 3.Google Scholar

78 Mendeleev, “Spiriticheskie uzly,” 3. For the Dostoevskii article, see PSS,30(i):16, and the accompanying editorial notes. The sole secondary account of this incident is almost 75 years old: N. Lerner, “Tainstvennye uzelki: Sluchai s Dostoevskim,” Literaturno- Khudozhestvennyi Sbornik “KrasnoiPanoramy”(October 1928): 36–42.

79 See Carlson, “Fashionable Occultism,” 138; Valentina G. Brougher, “The Occult in Russian Literature of the 1990s,” Russian Review56, no. 1 (January 1997): 110–24; and DeNio Stephens, Holly, “The Occult in Russia Today,” in Rosenthal, , ed., Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture,357–76.Google Scholar