scholarly journals To Be or Not to Be God—The Issue of Authorial Power in Dostoevsky

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 506
Author(s):  
Alexander Zholkovsky

This paper problematizes the now widely accepted concept of Dostoevsky’s dialogism, which alleges the ‘Author’s’ equal empowerment of all his characters. Using examples from Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, Zholkovsky focuses on instances of ‘scene-staging’ based on the ‘scripts’ devised and enacted by some characters, that are ‘read,’ with varying success, by their targets. He documents the resulting ‘discursive combat’ among the characters, with special attention paid to those ‘playing god’ and thus, the more ‘authorial’ among them. In several cases, the would-be ‘divine’ manipulation is shown to be consistently subverted by the Dostoevskian narrative. However, in one instance, where Aliosha Karamazov charitably scripts Captain Snegirev’s behavior, the ensuing discussion of this episode, in Aliosha’s conversations with Lise Khokhlakova, upholds Aliosha’s right to play god with the Other—“for the Other’s own good”, of course (not unlike the Grand Inquisitor).

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 84-93
Author(s):  
M. B. Plyukhanova ◽  

The article is based on the idea that fi ve Dostoevsky’s novels can be interpreted as one continuous text. This opinion has already been expressed by Vyacheslav Ivanov, Petr Bitsilli and others, in various frameworks. The article shows how certain scenes and details migrate from one novel to the other, gaining key positions in the novels’ structure. Scenes involving a coffi n with the body of a victim (a woman, a child), are analyzed: flowers, birds, a fly acquire different functions and meanings in such scenes in "Crime and Punishment", "The Idiot", "The Eternal Husband", "The Brothers Karamazov". The concept of one continuous work («great novel», or «super-novel») takes shape through correspondences and contrasts between such images and details.


Author(s):  
Анастасия Николаевна Кошечко ◽  
Алина Сергеевна Шилова

Введение. Предпринята попытка исследования рецепции антропологического идеала в романе Ф. М. Достоевского «Братья Карамазовы» русскими религиозными философами порубежной эпохи XIX–XX вв. Аутентичное понимание и интерпретация ключевых идей писателя о человеческом идеале, его ценностях и смысле жизни возможны только в контексте православной антропологии. Важность этого материала не ограничивается осмыслением проблемы антропологического идеала и его влияния на дальнейшее развитие русской религиозно-философской мысли, позволяет исследовать особенности художественного мира романа, в том числе специфику репрезентации в идейном поле произведения авторского начала, мировоззрения писателя. Материал и методы. Материалом исследования послужили работы В. С. Соловьева «Три речи в память Достоевского», В. В. Розанова «Легенда о Великом инквизиторе», Н. А. Бердяева «Миросозерцание Достоевского», Н. О. Лосского «Достоевский и его христианское миропонимание», канонический текст романа Ф. М. Достоевского «Братья Карамазовы». Используются культурно-исторический, сравнительно-сопоставительный, структурно-типологический методы. Результаты и обсуждение. Наука о Достоевском начинается именно с трудов русских религиозных философов и мыслителей конца XIX – начала XX в., которые идеи о сущности человека, его предназначении, идеале делают содержательным ядром своих размышлений. Итоговый роман Великого Пятикнижия «Братья Карамазовы» как квинтэссенция жизненного и творческого пути Достоевского, неразрывно связанный с духовными и аксиологическими императивами православной антропологии, наиболее часто привлекается религиозными философами для рефлексии ключевых доминант собственных философских концепций, анализа и аргументации идей. Этот материал позволяет исследовать особенности художественного мира романа, специфику репрезентации в идейном поле произведения мировоззрения писателя и авторского начала, антропологического идеала, неразрывно связанного для Достоевского с такими духовными и ценностными доминантами, как Христос, Православие, святость, народность, добро и зло, и выявить его влияние на дальнейшее развитие русской религиозно-философской мысли. Заключение. Антропологический идеал Достоевского, по мысли религиозных философов, опирается на православное учение о человеке, раскрывающее как антиномичность человеческой природы (pro et contra в терминологии писателя), так и бытийную ее устремленность к Богу, Истине, потребность в добре, вне которых личность осознает свое не-бытие. Доминантами антропологического идеала писателя, которые находят отражение в трудах религиозных философов, становятся святость, красота как этическая доминанта личности, укорененность в ценностях и смыслах христоцентричной в своих основаниях русской культуры. Introduction. This article attempts to study the reception of the anthropological ideal in the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky “The Brothers Karamazov” by Russian religious philosophers of the late 19th–20th centuries. Authentic understanding and interpretation of the writer’s key ideas about the human ideal, its values and the meaning of life is possible only in the context of Orthodox anthropology. The importance of this material is not limited to comprehending the problem of the anthropological ideal and its influence on the further development of Russian religious and philosophical thought; moreover, it allows one to explore the peculiarities of the artistic world of the novel, including the specifics of the representation of the author’s principle in the ideological field of the work, the peculiarities of the writer’s worldview. Material and methods. The research material was the work of V. S. Solovyov “Three Speeches in memory of Dostoevsky”, V. V. Rozanov “The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor”, N. А. Berdyaeva “Dostoevsky’s worldview”, N. O. Lossky “Dostoevsky and his Christian worldview”, the canonical text of the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky “The Brothers Karamazov”. The work uses cultural and historical, comparative, structural and typological methods. Results and discussion. The science of Dostoevsky begins precisely with the works of Russian religious philosophers and thinkers of the late XIX – early XX centuries, which ideas about the essence of man, his purpose, ideally make him a meaningful core of his thoughts. The final novel of the Great Pentateuch “The Brothers Karamazov” as a quintessence of Dostoevsky’s life and creative path, inextricably connected with the spiritual and axiological imperatives of Orthodox anthropology, is most often attracted by religious philosophers to reflect key dominants of their own philosophical concepts, analyze and argue ideas. This material allows us to explore the features of the artistic world of the novel, the specifics of representation in the ideological field of the work of the writer’s worldview and author’s beginning, the features of the anthropological ideal, inextricably linked for Dostoevsky with such spiritual and value dominants as Christ, Orthodoxy, holiness, nationality, good and evil, and to identify its influence on the further development of Russian religious and philosophical thought. Conclusion. Dostoevsky’s anthropological ideal, according to religious philosophers, is based on the Orthodox doctrine of man, revealing both the antinomy of human nature («pro et contra» in the writer’s terminology) and its previous striving for God, Truth, the need for good, outside of which the person is aware of his non-existence. The dominants of the anthropological ideal of the writer, which are reflected in the works of religious philosophers, are holiness, beauty as the ethical dominant of the person, and reproach in the values and meanings of Christ-centered Russian culture in their foundations.


Author(s):  
Anne Dufourmantelle

To attack gentleness is an unnamed crime that our era often commits in the name of its divinities: efficiency, speed, profitability. We try to make it institutionalizable so that it does not disrupt everything. Dufourmantelle discusses “The Grand Inquisitor” in The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky. Gentleness appears first as a failure. It breaks all the rules of good social manners.


2021 ◽  
pp. 39-51
Author(s):  
Anna F. Makarova ◽  

The report examines the influence of some of Dostoevsky’s ideas on Berdyaev, reveals a significant conditionality of the early direction of Berdyaev’s thought by Dostoevsky’s “accursed questions”, his ideas of freedom, the image of Christ, pneumatology, reveals kinship and continuity of outlooks. The author especially notes the influence on Berdyaev of such works of Dostoevsky as “Notes from Underground”, “The Brothers Karamazov” (in particular, the chapter “The Grand Inquisitor”), as well as Berdyaev’s position on the question “Is Dostoevsky a philosopher?” that is still relevant in philosophical community.


1964 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 353-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellis Sandoz

The political thought of Fyodor Dostoevsky grows out of his opposition to nihilism, atheistic humanism, and socialism in much the same way as the philosophy of Plato grew out of his opposition to the sophists. Indeed, the parallel of Dostoevsky's thought with that of Plato is to be seen in some further aspects of this fundamental opposition. Both the Russian master of the novel and the Hellenic founder of political science confronted adversaries for whom “Man is the measure of all things” and each based his opposition on the principle “God is the Measure,” to use Plato's formulation. This declaration, echoing like a thunderclap across more than twenty centuries of history, found consummate expression in the last great work of each writer: the Laws and The Brothers Karamazov.


SlavVaria ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
ДИАНА КОМЯТИ

“Two novels of one biography”: “Three years” by A.P. Chekhov and “The Brothers Karamazov” by F.M. Dostoevsky. In contemporary Chekhov studies the significance of Dostoevsky’s creative heritage in Chekhov’ artistic world is increasingly comprehended. They attempt to reveal and interpret intertextual connections with Dostoevsky’s novels, embedded in the subtext of Chekhov’s works. On the one hand, common themes and problems that bring writers closer together are revealed, on the other hand, Chekhov’s polemical rethinking of Dostoevsky’s legacy is noted. Connected with this tendency the article deals with comparative analysis of Chekhov’s story “Three Years” and Dostoevsky’s novel “The Brothers Karamazov”. In this work we try to identify and interpretate the allusions and parallels hidden in Chekhov’s story.


2021 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 54-75
Author(s):  
Kåre Johan Mjør

The article analyses a set of philosophical statements made by and attributed to Ivan Karamazov in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, in order to answer the question as to what kind of philosophy Ivan may be said to express in the novel. My close reading reveals that there is a significant distinction between, on the one hand,  Ivan's most radical statements, that is his rational egoism and the idea that "everything is permitted," which are always given in reported speech, and on the other the “Ivan of direct speech,” a character characterized by far more moral sensibility (e.g. in the Pro et contra part). On the basis of these findings the article seeks to bring together two traditions in the reception of Dostoevsky—the philosophical and the narratological. By letting these approaches inform one another I suggest ways in which the structural organization of the text is itself a bearer of philosophical meaning. Moreover, the article takes seriously Bakhtin's claim that Dostoevsky's heroes are not merely stable representations of ideas, but engage with them through dialogue and encounters with others, as exemplified by Ivan Karamazov himself as well as by other characters' responses to his articulations. 


2020 ◽  
pp. 65-78
Author(s):  
Sergej Beuk ◽  
Jana Aleksic

/ In this paper, we observe the chapter “The Great Inquisitor” in the novel The Brothers Karamazov as a literary field in which the dominant discourse of Power, the Church elite, represented by the Grand Inquisitor, is confronted by the subversive aspirations of marginalized social groups, embodied in the figure of Christ. Initially considering that the “poem” is an eminent text of culture, in which a vast number of textual clues have been absorbed, primarily the Holy Bible, we discover how the character of the Grand Inquisitor was constructed from the generic-hermeneutic angle. This implies a contextual theological, (inter)textual and semantic framework. In the central part of the paper, the focus of our analysis is the mechanisms by which institutions of power control subversive elements and aspects of their rebellion from the perspective of New Historicism. At the end of the paper, we point to the histori- cal and civilizational implications of an antagonistically conceived narrative on the problems of human freedom, action, and the implementation of power in history and, consequently, the organization of the (contemporary) world.


2021 ◽  
pp. 132-141
Author(s):  
Tatiana Millionshchikova ◽  

The review analyzes Slavic literary studies of the USA discussing the motives of unreality used by F.M. Dostoevsky to create atmosphere of fantastic and supernatural in his prose. It focuses on the works by R.B. Anderson, R.L. Jackson, D. Lowe, N. Perlina, St. Rachman, and E. Slivkin, exploring the role and functions of supernatural in the Dostoevsky's novels «Notes from the House of the Dead», «Crime and punishment», «Idiot», «Devils», and «The Brothers Karamazov».


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