F. M. Dostoevsky and the Russian Revolution as Grasped by the Authors of the Book “From the Depths” (1918)

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Absract: The religious and philosophical ‘wing’ of the Russian intelligentsia, associated with the collection of articles “From the depths” (“Iz glubiny”), was viewing the events of the October revolution of 1917 largely through the prism of F.M. Dostoevsky’s works and thought. Of particular importance to the authors of the collection there were the notions and convictions of Dostoevsky, which concerned the most topical issues of the beginning of the 20 th century; namely, of the people, intelligentsia, the Tsarist autocracy — all of which were part of the revolutionary discourse. Our study makes use of the historical-functional method, the principles of receptive aesthetics, the hermeneutic approach, and conceptual analysis. The scholarly import of this article is in tracing the dynamics of the response to the views and opinions of the author of “The Devils” within the revolutionary context of the 1917 th -1918 th : after the fall of the monarchy and after the establishment of the Soviet regime, it was recognized that autocracy cannot be considered as the only source of all Russian troubles — the thought, which helped to stop labeling Dostoevsky as “reactionary”; by defying the concept of the “God-bearing people”, the publicists of “From the depths” recognized the contemporaneity of the phenomenon of “smerdyakovschina” (“a beast”, “a nihilist”, and “a shameless Ham” in one piece — a combination not unusual for the lower middle-class environment); the Dostoevsky term “chigalevschina” was acknowledged to be not a misnomer, but a truthful description of the revolutionary intellectuals; also the authors of “From the depths” shared with Dostoevsky the views on the religious-metaphysical meaning of the Russian revolution (the “demon possessed-ness” of its leaders and participants) and the Christian optimism toward the future spiritual destiny of the Russian people.
Keywords: Dostoevsky, a collection “From the depths”, the Revolution of 1917, “God-bearing people”, Tsarist autocracy, intellectuals, “smerdyakovschina”, “chigalevschina”.
Category: Vol 76, NO 1 (2017)
Pages: 47-54
Author: Olga A. Bogdanova

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