Научная статья на тему 'The West and Russia: concepts of inferiority in Dostoevsky’s “the Adolescent”'

The West and Russia: concepts of inferiority in Dostoevsky’s “the Adolescent” Текст научной статьи по специальности «Языкознание и литературоведение»

CC BY
185
38
i Надоели баннеры? Вы всегда можете отключить рекламу.
Ключевые слова
ЗАПАД / WEST / РОССИЯ / RUSSIA / КОНЦЕПЦИИ НЕПОЛНОЦЕННОСТИ / CONCEPTS OF INFERIORITY / Ф. М. ДОСТОЕВСКИЙ / FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY / "ПОДРОСТОК" / BILDUNGSROMAN / ФОРМИРОВАНИЕ ХАРАКТЕРА / CHARACTER FORMATION / ОТЧУЖДЁННОСТЬ / ALIENATION / ENTäUSSERUNG) / ГЕГЕЛЬ / НАДРЫВ / ИДЕЯ РОТШИЛЬДА / IDEA OF ROTHSCHILD / Н. Я. ДАНИЛЕВСКИЙ / NIKOLAI DANILEVSKY / "РОССИЯ И ЕВРОПА" / "RUSSIA AND EUROPE" / ЖАН ИППОЛИТ / JEAN HYPPOLITE / ЗОЛОТОЙ ВЕК / GOLDEN AGE / РАЗОЧАРОВАННОСТЬ / МАКС ШЕЛЕР / КОММУНИЗМ / COMMUNISM / АТЕИЗМ / ATHEISM / РУССКАЯ ПРАВОСЛАВНАЯ ЦЕРКОВЬ / RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH / ИКОНОГРАФИЯ / ICONOGRAPHY / ФОТОГРАФИЯ / PHOTOGRAPHY / ПАРИЖСКАЯ КОММУНА / PARIS COMMUNE / ПЕТР ВЕЛИКИЙ / PETER THE GREAT / "THE ADOLESCENT" / ENTäUSSERUNG / GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL / NADRYV (LACERATION) / RESSENTIMENT / MAX SCHELER

Аннотация научной статьи по языкознанию и литературоведению, автор научной работы — Brumfield William Craft

This article examines Dostoevsky’s novel Podrostok both as a development or formation of character a Bildungsroman in a Hegelian sense and as commentary on Russia’s development in relation to the West. The complexities of character formation, illustrated through the perception of the “adolescent” Arkadii Dolgorukii, are related to the theme of the “accidental family” and the Arkadii’s attempt to compensate for the absent or uncertain father (Versilov). The adolescent search for selfhood passes through a phase of alienation, or Hegelian Entäusserung (as presented in The Phenomenology of the Spirit ). In the process of writing his own life commentary, Arkadii must reeducate ( perevospitat’ ) himself and overcome his sense of inferiority and spiritual laceration nadryv in Dostoevsky’s term. False compensation for the sense of inferiority is expressed in Arkadii’s vain quest for power through wealth (the idea of Rothschild). This inner process is in turn a reflection of Russia’s complex relation to the West, a relation suffused with love and resentment, with a sense of inferiority and a claim of greatness. In examining this larger theme, the article introduces Nikolai Danilevsky’s political treatise Russia and Europe (1869, 1871), with its prophecy of an apocalyptic conflict between Russia and the West. The characters of Versilov (the nobleman whose allegiance is to Europe) and Kraft (the ideological radical) represent polar positions in the adolescent’s struggle for identity, a quest that reflects the broader struggle of Russia itself. At the end of the novel Arkadii forgives his father and moves beyond ressentiment toward a maturity whose emblem is Peter the Great.

i Надоели баннеры? Вы всегда можете отключить рекламу.
iНе можете найти то, что вам нужно? Попробуйте сервис подбора литературы.
i Надоели баннеры? Вы всегда можете отключить рекламу.

Текст научной работы на тему «The West and Russia: concepts of inferiority in Dostoevsky’s “the Adolescent”»

The West and Russia: Concepts of Inferiority in Dostoevsky's "The Adolescent"*

W. C. Brumfield (Tulane University, New Orleans, USA)

УДК 821.161.1; 94

Брумфилд У. К. Запад и Россия: концепт неполноценности в «Подростке» Ф. М. Достоевского

Abstract ♦ This article examines Dostoevsky's novel Podrostok both as a development or formation of character — a Bildungsroman in a Hegelian sense — and as commentary on Russia's development in relation to the West. The complexities of character formation, illustrated through the perception of the "adolescent" Arkadii Dolgorukii, are related to the theme of the "accidental family" and the Arkadii's attempt to compensate for the absent or uncertain father (Versilov). The adolescent search for selfhood passes through a phase of alienation, or Hegelian Entausserung (as presented in The Phenomenology of the Spirit).

In the process of writing his own life commentary, Arkadii must reeducate (perevospitat') himself and overcome his sense of inferiority and spiritual laceration — nadryv in Dostoevsky's term. False compensation for the sense of inferiority is expressed in Arkadii's vain quest for power through wealth (the idea of Rothschild). This inner process is in turn a reflection of Russia's complex relation to the West, a relation suffused with love and resentment, with a sense of inferiority and a claim of greatness. In examining this larger theme, the article introduces Nikolai Danilevsky's political treatise Russia and Europe (1869, 1871), with its prophecy of an apocalyptic conflict between Russia and the West. The characters of Versilov (the nobleman whose allegiance is to Europe) and Kraft (the ideological radical) represent polar positions in the adolescent's struggle for identity, a quest that reflects the broader struggle of Russia itself. At the end of the novel Arkadii forgives his father and moves beyond ressentiment toward a maturity whose emblem is Peter the Great.

Keywords: West, Russia, concepts of inferiority, Fyodor Dostoev-sky, "The Adolescent", Bildungsroman, character formation, alienation,

*

First published in: Russianness: Studies on a Nation's Identity. In Honor of Rufus Mathewson, 1918-1978 / ed. by Robert L. Belknap ; Studies of the Harriman Institute, Columbia University. Ardis : Ann Arbor, 1990. Pp. 144-152. This version is slightly different from the original. Some minor corrections were made.

X 149

Entäusserung, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, nadryv (laceration), idea of Rothschild, Nikolai Danilevsky, "Russia and Europe", Jean Hyppo-lite, the Golden Age, ressentiment, Max Scheler, communism, atheism, Russian Orthodox Church, iconography, photography, Paris Commune, Peter the Great.

Аннотация ♦ В статье рассматривается процесс развития и формирования характера, а также точка зрения о развитии отношений между Россией и Западом в романе Ф. М. Достоевского «Подросток» (Bildungsroman в понимании Г. В. Ф. Гегеля). Сложности формирования характера на примере восприятия образа подростка Аркадия Долгорукового связаны с темой «временной семьи» и попыткой Аркадия найти замену отсутствующему и номинальному отцу (Версилову). Подростковый поиск своей самости проходит сквозь фазу отчуждения (понятие «Entäusserung» Гегеля в его работе «Феноменология духа»).

В процессе написания комментария о своей собственной жизни Аркадий должен перевоспитать себя и преодолеть чувство неполноценности и духовного надрыва. Ложная компенсация чувства неполноценности выражена в тщетных поисках Аркадия власти через богатство (идея Ротшильда). Этот внутренний процесс в свою очередь является отражением сложных отношений России и Запада, наполненных любовью и недовольством, чувством неполноценности и заявкой на величие. Исследуя эту обширную тему, автор статьи анализирует политический трактат Н. Я. Данилевского «Россия и Европа» (1869, 1871), в котором предсказан апокалиптический конфликт между Россией и Западом. Образы Версилова (дворянина с большой привязанностью к Европе) и Крафта (идеологического радикала) представляют полярные позиции в подростковой борьбе за идентичность, поиск, отражающий более широкую борьбу самой России. В конце романа Аркадий прощает отца и от ощущения безнадежности переходит к зрелости, которая воплощена в личности Петра Великого.

Ключевые слова: Запад, Россия, концепции неполноценности, Ф. М. Достоевский, «Подросток», Bildungsroman, формирование характера, отчуждённость, Entäusserung), Гегель, надрыв, идея Ротшильда, Н. Я. Данилевский, «Россия и Европа», Жан Ипполит, золотой век, разочарованность, Макс Шелер, коммунизм, атеизм, Русская Православная Церковь, иконография, фотография, Парижская коммуна, Петр Великий.

We have become Europeans under the inescapable condition of disrespect for ourselves.

Notebooks for The Adolescent (Dostoevsky, 1976a: 168)9

The Adolescent (or A Raw Youth; in Russian Podrostok) has generally been considered Dostoevsky's inferior novel, the misshapen product of a fallow period between the writing of The Possessed and The Brothers Karamazov. "The Adolescent <...> is by far the weakest of Dostoevsky's major novels. It is a grab bag of old themes, devices, and psychologizing" (Wasiolek, 1964: 137). This trenchant view could be supplemented by any number of similar statements and it is not the purpose of this paper to dispute such an overwhelming body of critical opinion. To the contrary, it is the novel's clearly perceived defects — the frenetic, disorganized pace and the confusing, "improbable" structure — that provide such a revealing insight into Dostoevsky's perfervid state of mind at the time of the novel's writing. The anxious statements in defense of the adolescent's "notes" (statements which open and close the work) are both an admission of formlessness and a challenge to those who would ignore the difficulty of the writer's task in attempting to comprehend the rancor and defiance of inferiority. For The Adolescent is a novel suffused with a sense of inferiority: the author's, the protagonist's — and Russia's.

The novel was begun in a particularly frustrating and uncertain period in Dostoevsky's late career: having completed The Possessed in the latter part of 1872, he devoted much of the following year to work on The Diary of a Writer, which appeared in Prince Vladimir Meshcher-skii's newspaper The Citizen (Grazhdanin)10. His difficulties in editing and contributing to the newspaper notwithstanding, this period had considerable value for the development and exposition of certain of the writer's most fundamental concerns, among them the destabilization of contemporary Russian society, and the character of Russia's youth (cf. "Odna iz sovremennykh fal'shei," December 10, 1873). In addition Dos-toevsky gave his public an extensive commentary in the newspaper on current events in Western Europe ("Inostrannye sobytiia"), the installments of which appeared between September 1873 and January 1874. The final installment contains a passage of particular interest in defining Dostoevsky's view of Russo-European relations. Having noted Russian

9 All subsequent quotations from Dostoevsky's works will refer to this edition, prepared by the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

10 For a history of his relations with Meshcherskii, see the commentary to Dnevnik pisatelia [The Diary of a Writer] in: Dostoevsky, 1980: 359-370.

X 151

successes in the campaign against the khanate of Khiva and Europe's "amazement" at this course of events, Dostoevsky remarks:

Russia does not fear the fact that she is increasingly recognized in Europe; on the contrary, she desires it. True, Europe has never yet believed Russia in this regard. Russia's entire political life throughout perhaps the entire nineteenth century has consisted of her sacrifice to Europe of practically all her interests. And what is the result: Did Europe believe even once in the political selflessness of Russia, and did not Europe almost always suspect her of the most perfidious intentions against European civilization? (Dostoevsky, 1980: 242)

The hectoring, offended tone of this passage is reminiscent of the rhetoric of twentieth-century totalitarianism; but a more appropriate comparison to Dostoevsky's views — indeed, a likely source for them — can be found in Nikolai Danilevsky's Russia and Europe, first published in the journal Dawn (Zar'ia) during 1869, and reissued in a separate edition in 1871. Danilevsky's vision of an inevitable, apocalyptic conflict between Russia and the West was certainly known to Dostoev-sky: the beginning of the book's second chapter, entitled "Why is Europe hostile to Russia?", asserts that Europe has not only been ungrateful for Russia's services (in the war against Napoleon, for example), but has also been consistently and groundlessly suspicious of Russian geopolitical ambitions (Danilevsky, 1895: 20-21)11. The similarity is clear, and there were to be other points of agreement between the two: Russian messianism, Slavic brotherhood, the drive toward Constantinople.

Yet the disingenuous attempts of both Dostoevsky and Danilevsky to explain Russian territorial expansion, and the sense of nationalistic resentment toward those who would deny Russia her rightful destiny are challenged in The Adolescent by another view of the impending apocalypse in Europe — an apocalypse that would lead not to the triumph of Russian messianism, but to the destruction of all cultural values. Dosto-evsky's concern for the twilight of civilization is evident from his first jottings in what would become the notebooks for The Adolescent. Among references to the "Hamlet-Christian," the "rapacious type" (the future Versilov), and a novel about children, he notes:

A fantastical epic-poem-novel: future society, commune, uprising in Paris, victory, 200 million heads, horrible sores, debauchery, destruction of the arts, of libraries, tormented child (Dostoevsky, 1976a: 15).

The evolution from these early notes in 1874 to the author's decision in July 1874 that the adolescent, Arkadii Dolgorukii, would be the novel's hero (and not "HE", the rapacious type, Versilov) has been examined in the Academy edition of Dostoevsky's works. But whatever

11 For a study of Danilevsky's political thought, see: MacMaster, 1967.

X 152

the changes, the sense of alarm at a general European conflagration and the resentment expressed in his commentary on foreign events (noted above) remained with the writer throughout his work on the novel; and we will argue that the shift of the narrative to the adolescent — Versilov's son — provides Dostoevsky with a perspective from which he can examine not only the relation between father and son but also — by metaphorical extension — between Europe and Russia.

The parallel, or metaphor, is by no means rigid: inferiority, resentment, and the challenge to authority operate on many levels in The Adolescent. The narrator's opening statement on his reasons for an account of certain events in the preceding year of his life is a marvel of apology and self-justification, one which reads very much like a parody of Dos-toevsky's own defense of his literary work at this time against those, for example, who valued more highly the work of Tolstoy (cf. Dostoevsky, 1976a: 329-330). Yet Arkadii's opening chatter is disarming: "I am much smarter than that which I have written" (Dostoevsky, 1975: 6). Like the Underground Man, the Adolescent claims to write only for himself, beyond criticism. Even the properties of the Russian language are enlisted to forestall criticism: "I should note also that not in a single European language, it seems, is it as difficult to write as in Russian". Russia, disadvantaged even in its mode of discourse.

With such anxiety over the truth and adequacy of telling, it is fitting that the adolescent's narrative conclude not with the narrator's words, but the approving comments of a wiser, older figure (Nikolai Semenovich, Arkadii's mentor during his high school years in Moscow), through whom Dostoevsky defends the validity of his work against the implied criticism of formlessness12. In a thinly-veiled polemic with Tolstoy's representation of the cohesive gentry family, Dostoevsky's spokesman praises the adolescent for his portrayal of the "accidental family," emblematic of the fragmentation of Russian society:

I must confess, I would not wish to be the novelist of a hero from the accidental family.

Thankless work and without beautiful forms.

But such "Notes" as yours, it seems to me, might serve as material for a future artistic work, for a future picture of a disordered, but past, epoch (Ibid: 455).

This passage can be read as the insertion of the author's fear for his own neglect — a fear well-documented in Dostoevsky's notes of this period; yet it would be inappropriate to assume that Dostoevsky had re-

12

The concept of implied critic must here be added to those of implied reader and implied author — particularly in The Adolescent, where it forms an important part of the structure of inferiority.

X 153

placed a concern Russia's future with a concern for his own reputation. For Dostoevsky, and for his reassuring commentator in the final pages, the important moment is the telling, whose cathartic value assists in the formation of the adolescent's character as it overcomes his resentment and his isolation from the world around him. As Jean Hyppolite remarks in his commentary on Hegel's use of the term "alienation" (Entausserung) in The Phenomenology of the Spirit:

Mais les deux termes de culture et d'alienation ont une signification très proche l'un de l'autre. C'est par l'aliénation de son être naturel que l'individu déterminé se cultive et se forme à l'essentialité. D'une façon plus précise on peut dire que pour Hegel la culture de Soi n'est concevable que par la médiation de l'aliénation ou de l'extranèation [Etfremdung]. Se cultiver ce n'èst pas se développer harmonieusement comme par une croissance organique, c'est s'opposer a soi-même, se retrouver à travers un déchirement et une séparation (Hyppolite, 1946: 372).

Dostoevsky then has created a Bildungsroman in a Hegelian sense (Bildung = culture, formation), and he has told it through the character for whom the act of writing is the process of self-formation. (Arkadii uses the term perevospitat', or to "reeducate".) As the avuncular commentator tells him: "I firmly believe that with this exposition you have been largely able to "re-educate" yourself, as you put it" (Dostoevsky, 1975: 452). In his reeducation, Arkadii has purged himself of his "idea" of Rothschild, an idea of power through wealth, which could be used as an instrument of revenge against a society that had placed him in a position of inferiority. To return to Hyppolite: "Le langage est en effect la seule aliénation spirituelle du Moi qui donne une solution au probl ème que nous nous sommes posé <...> Le Moi qui s'exprime est appris [as it is by Dostoevsky's commentator]; il devient une contagion universelle dans sa disparition même" (Hyppolite, 1946: 390).

But the overcoming of Arkadii's laceration (nadryv in Dostoev-sky's terms, déchirement in Hyppolite's) is not the only virtue noted by Nikolai Semenovich in his commentary. He concludes by affirming the value of these notes for future generations, who might wish to understand this "time of troubles" (smutnoe vremia) as experienced by an adolescent representative of a troubled generation. In this conclusion Dosto-evsky has clearly expressed his own hope in the future of Russia's youth. Yet the notion of material for the future, here hopefully stated, echoes oddly with an earlier passage, in chapter three, which contains the most nihilistic expression of Russian inferiority in Dostoevsky's work:

He concluded that the Russian people are a second-rate people <.> who are ordained to serve only as material for a nobler tribe, and who do not have their own, independent role in the destinies of mankind. In view of this <.>

X 154

Mister Kraft came to the conclusion that any further activity of any Russian should be paralyzed by this idea... (Dostoevsky, 1975: 44).

The bearer of these views — a certain Kraft, whose historical and intellectual prototypes have been thoroughly examined by Soviet scholars (cf. Dostoevsky, 1976b: 366, 374-75) — never actually expresses them in the novel. Rather, they are paraphrased by his intellectual inferiors, members of a radical discussion group based on the Dolgushin circle, whose revolutionary populism led to their arrest in 1873 . Kraft's position is misinterpreted or vulgarized by the circle's participants, with the exception of a certain Yasin, who suggests that Kraft has gone beyond logic into the realm of the "idea-emotion" (cf. Max Scheler's opposition of emotional consciousness to intellectual consciousness).

Dostoevsky has protected Kraft's idea by showing how easily it can be misunderstood by those who wish to encase it in political and social platitudes (one speaker states that Russians are able to serve a useful purpose in the development of mankind even as a second-rate people). Dostoevsky abandons the Dergachev/Dolgushin radical group after this scene, and the group's significance in the final version of the novel is considerably less than had been intended during the work on the drafts. But the significance of Kraft's idea-emotion remains, and is eagerly accepted by Arkadii as applicable to his own state of thought. With Yasin as an intermediary, Arkadii meets with Kraft, who develops his idea in a manner that illustrates the real nature of his concern for Russia. He defines the age as one in which mediocrity has triumphed and moral ideas are totally lacking. In angry words that anticipate Astrov's declamation in Uncle Vania he says:

Today they're stripping Russia of its forests, they exhaust the soil, they turn to the steppe and prepare it for the Kalmyks. If someone should appear with hope and plant a tree, they laugh: "Do you think you're going to live that long?" On the other hand, those who desire the good talk only of what will be in a thousand years. The binding idea has disappeared completely. It seems that everyone is staying at an inn, and tomorrow they'll leave Russia behind (Dostoevsky, 1975: 54).

When Arkadii suggests that the vain hope for what will occur in a thousand years is reminiscent of Kraft's own sense of hopelessness, the latter admits, with irritation, that this is the most substantive question to be resolved in his case by suicide.

This nexus of ideas is hardly new to Dostoevsky's work: in The Possessed, Shatov speaks of ethnographic material in a speech to Stav-

13

A survey of the group's activities is contained in Venturi, 1966: 496-501. For an analysis of Dostoevsky's response to the arrest and trial of the Dolgushin group, see: Dostoevsky, 1976b: 299-303.

X 155

rogin on the nature of a great people. A great people must believe that the truth necessary to save the world resides in it alone, for otherwise that people is suited only for ethnographic material. A great nation can never reconcile itself to a second or even first-rate role in humankind; it must assume primacy (Dostoevsky, 1974: 200). This tergiversation from inferiority to unquestioned supremacy in national identity is a characteristic aspect of Dostoevsky's thought: and even if one allows for its "dia-logical" presentation in his fictional work, there can be little doubt that Dostoevsky frequently subscribes to an extremist nationalism similar to that expressed in Danilevsky's Russia and Europe. In chapter three of that work ("European Civilization"), Danilevsky states:

In sum, the three roles which can fall to the lot of a people are: the positive activity of an indigenous historico-cultural type, or the destructive activity of the so-called scourges of God, delivering death to decrepit (expiring in agony) civilizations, or the service of others' goals in the capacity of ethnographic material (Danilevsky, 1895: 93-94).

Like Danilevsky, Dostoevsky believed in the historic mission of Slavdom, and both expected a war that would purify that mission and demonstrate Russia's moral superiority over the technological, material power of the West. Finally, like Danilevsky, Dostoevsky's ideologues Shatov and Kraft seem to admit no middle ground: the assumption of superiority is necessary for the nation's survival. Otherwise, it is fit only for "ethnographic material".

There were, to be sure, differences between Dostoevsky and Danilevsky in the interpretation of the Russian role. In a letter to Nikolai Strakhov (March 1869), Dostoevsky writes:

[I am] not convinced that Danilevsky delineates with full force the ultimate essence of the Russian mission, which consists in the revelation of the Russian Christ before the world, the Christ unknown to the world and whose principle is contained in our kind of Orthodoxy. In my view this is the whole essence of our future role as civilizer and resurrector, as it were, of all Eu-

14

rope...

And yet, even on this most fundamental point of Russian messian-ism, Dostoevsky expressed his doubts in the notebooks for The Adolescent: "Versilov on the inevitability of communism" (Dostoevsky, 1976a: 360). Communism, according to this passage, will achieve its earthly reign in accordance with certain irrevocable laws and in contrast to the reign of Christ in heaven. "However, it would be the highest good if Russia could understand the communism of Europe, for then she would understand at the same time how far she is from it." Russia is fated to

14 Translated in MacMaster, 1967: 352.

X 156

implement an alien idea, incompletely understood and imported from Europe.

Such references to communism, as well as to the Europeanization and Rootlessness of post-Petrine Russia are muted in the final version of the novel. Versilov has become the spokesman for Russia's universality and its acceptance of European culture (cf. Part III, Chapter 7, Versilov's vision of the Golden Age — paradise on earth without God). In an extended disquisition, which serves as a counterpoint to Kraft's commentary on Russia, Versilov identifies himself as a member of a select group of one thousand, the finest representatives of the Russian nobility, whose culture has been built upon the effort of "all Russia". As one of the select "bearers of ideas," Versilov has abandoned his country, as he did his wife and son, Arkadii, in order to become the ideal European citizen: "For the Russian, Europe is just as precious as Russia: every stone in it is sweet and dear. Europe has been just as much our fatherland as Russia, Oh even more!" (Dostoevsky, 1975: 377). Shortly thereafter Versilov speaks in the words of Dostoevsky the journalist: ".. .Agree, my friend [Arkadii], the telling fact is that for almost a century Russia has been living not at all for itself, but only for Europe." But having accepted the European cultural ideal, Versilov must contemplate its decline, anticipated by the wanton destruction occurring during the Paris Commune (March — May 1871) and symbolized by Versilov's vision of the setting sun ("the last day of Europe").

Between them, Kraft and Versilov illustrate the ambiguity of Dos-toevsky's view of Europe and the European presence. Versilov, the product of an exploited mass (ethnographic material), a nobleman estranged from his country, a bearer of ideas without commitment, is emblematic of every point in Kraft's jeremiad. And although Dostoevsky may have written his own thoughts into Versilov's reverence for European culture and his belief that Russia, and only Russia, is dedicated to reconciliation within a Europe, torn by social strife, yet the split between the cosmopolitan ideal and nationalist imperative is too great for Dosto-evsky to resolve or Versilov to bear. Even Arkadii, who enthusiastically receives Versilov's noble sentiments on supranational citizenship, considers the idea of reconciliation nonsense (ibid: 388).

The climax of this tension between two irreconcilable principles occurs in typically Dostoevskian fashion: a scandal scene which reveals the split within Versilov's person. Taking an icon that had been bequeathed to him by the saintly Makar Dolgorukii (the lawful husband of Sofia, Arkadii's mother), Versilov attempts to describe to Sofia and his family the sensation within him of doubling or splitting, and suddenly smashes the icon into two pieces — an act that he himself calls "allegorical" (ibid: 409). In desecrating a religious image dear to the pious

X 157

woman who loves him, Versilov has released the tension of his destructive passion for Katerina Nikolaevna, the femme fatale whose attractions are counterposed to the devotion of Sofia.

But Versilov has also destroyed one of the most sacred symbols of pre-Petrine Russia — the icon — with its connotations of a national faith, of Russian unity within the Orthodox Church. In fact Dostoevsky has himself replaced the icon as an object of veneration with the photograph — that Western invention whose mechanical facility seemed to undercut the very notion of spirituality in art. This substitution is effected on a comically grotesque level when the old Prince Sokolskii, in his dotage, whispers to Arkadii about the pornographic photographs of naked women shown to him by his landlord-captor, and then asks Arkadii to find the photographic portrait of Katerina Nikolaevna, over which he weeps and proclaims: "C'est une ange, c'est un ange du ciel!" (ibid: 431).

The more profound example of the new secularized, mechanized iconography is revealed in Versilov's veneration of the photographic portrait of Sofia. In one of his final meetings with Versilov, Arkadii recalls particularly: "Mother's portrait — a photograph taken, of course, abroad <...> I had not known and had not heard about the portrait before, and the main thing that struck me was a resemblance unusual for a photograph, that is, a spiritual resemblance — in a word, as though this were a genuine portrait [sic] from the hand of an artist and not a mechanical print" (ibid: 369). Versilov, the iconoclast, reverently kisses the photograph ("taken, of course, abroad"); and in our last view of him, after the smashing of the icon and the violent confrontation with Katerina Nikolaevna, a convalescent Versilov gazes tearfully at the photograph of Sofia and repeatedly kisses it (ibid: 447). Even though she is present in the flesh, Versilov worships the photographic icon, the benign image of Russian womanhood to which he has returned in complete, child-like trust and submission.

The collapse of Versilov and of his ideal of the Russian nobleman as conciliator and cosmopolitan facilitates Arkadii's accession to maturity; and in Arkadii's escape from the cycle of ressentiment, the son is capable of perceiving the father's posturing without condemnation. In this resolution of the novel Dostoevsky has committed himself unequivocally in the contemporary debate over Russia's future leadership: it will come not from a resurrected landed nobility, but from a new class inculcated with the values of industry, education, and diligence. For all of his distrust of the Petrine reforms, Dostoevsky has now accepted precisely the values that Peter wished to instill in Russian society; and in so doing Dostoevsky has implicitly accepted Peter's vision of Russia as a modern European state.

X 158

At the end of the novel, narrative and authorial pronouncement merge in an expression of hope for the future of Russia: "from adolescents generations are created" (ibid: 453). It is this quest for maturity, revealed in the life of the adolescent, that provides Dostoevsky with a position from which to view the larger question of Russia and Europe, and allows him — at least temporarily — to dispel the rancor of inferiority that pervades so much of his non-fictional writing on the matter.

REFERENCES

Danilevsky, N. Ya. (1895) Rossiia i Evropa. Vzgliad na kul'turnye i politicheskie otnosheniia Slavianskogo mira k Germano-Romanskomu [Russia and Europe. A look at the cultural and political relations of the Slavic world to the Romano-German world]. 5th edn. [N. Strakhov's]. St. Petersburg, Brothers Panteleev's Printing House. 628 p. (In Russ.).

Dostoevsky, F. M. (1974) Polnoe sobranie sochinenii [Complete works] : in 30 vols. Leningrad, Nauka Publ. Vol. 10. 520 p. (In Russ.).

Dostoevsky, F. M. (1975) Polnoe sobranie sochinenii [Complete works] : in 30 vols. Leningrad, Nauka Publ. Vol. 13. 456 p. (In Russ.).

Dostoevsky, F. M. (1976a) Polnoe sobranie sochinenii [Complete works] : in 30 vols. Leningrad, Nauka Publ. Vol. 16. 440 p. (In Russ.).

Dostoevsky, F. M. (1976b) Polnoe sobranie sochinenii [Complete works] : in 30 vols. Leningrad, Nauka Publ. Vol. 17. 480 p. (In Russ.).

Dostoevsky, F. M. (1980) Polnoe sobranie sochinenii [Complete works] : in 30 vols. Leningrad, Nauka Publ. Vol. 21. 552 p. (In Russ.).

Hyppolite, J. (1946) Genèse et structure de la Phénoménologie de l'esprit' de Hegel. Paris, Éditions Montaigne. 308 p. (In French).

MacMaster, R. E. (1967) Danilevsky: A Russian totalitarian philosopher. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. ix, 368 p.

Venturi, F. (1966) Roots of revolution: A history of the populist and socialist movements in nineteenth century Russia / transl. by F. Haskell. New York, Grosset & Dunlap. xiii, 850 p.

Wasiolek, E. (1964) Dostoevsky: The major fiction. Cambridge, MA, The M.I.T. Press. xiv, 255 p.

СПИСОК ЛИТЕРА ТУРЫ

Данилевский, Н. Я. (1895) Россия и Европа. Взгляд на культурные и политические отношения Славянского мира к Германо-Романскому. 5-е изд. [Н. Страхова]. СПб. : Тип. братьев Пантелеевых.

X 159

Достоевский, Ф. М. (1974) Полн. собр. соч. : в 30 т. Л. : Наука. Т. 10. 520 с.

Достоевский, Ф. М. (1975) Полн. собр. соч. : в 30 т. Л. : Наука. Т. 13. 456 с.

Достоевский, Ф. М. (1976a) Полн. собр. соч. : в 30 т. Л. : Наука. Т. 16. 440 с.

Достоевский, Ф. М. (1976b) Полн. собр. соч. : в 30 т. Л. : Наука. Т. 17. 480 с.

Достоевский, Ф. М. (1980) Полн. собр. соч. : в 30 т. Л. : Наука. Т. 21. 552 с.

Hyppolite, J. (1946) Genèse et structure de la Phénoménologie de l'esprit' de Hegel. Paris : Éditions Montaigne. 308 p.

MacMaster, R. E. (1967) Danilevsky: A Russian totalitarian philosopher. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press. ix, 368 p.

Venturi, F. (1966) Roots of revolution: A history of the populist and socialist movements in nineteenth century Russia / transl. by F. Haskell. N. Y. : Grosset & Dunlap. xiii, 850 p.

Wasiolek, E. (1964) Dostoevsky: The major fiction. Cambridge, MA : The M.I.T. Press. xiv, 255 p.

Brumfield William Craft, PhD, Professor of Slavic Studies, Tulane University, New Orleans, USA. Postal address: 6823 Saint Charles Avenue, 70118 New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. Tel.: +1 (504) 865-52-76.

Брумфилд Уильям Крафт — доктор наук, профессор славистики Университета Тулейн, Новый Орлеан, США. Адрес: 6823 Saint Charles Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana, 70118, USA. Тел.: +1 (504) 865-52-76.

E-mail: [email protected]

iНе можете найти то, что вам нужно? Попробуйте сервис подбора литературы.

Библиограф. описание: Brumfield W. C. The West and Russia: Concepts of Inferiority in Dostoevsky's "The Adolescent" [Запад и Россия: концепт неполноценности в «Подростке» Ф. М. Достоевского] [Электронный ресурс] // Информационный гуманитарный портал «Знание. Понимание. Умение». 2015. № 1 (январь — февраль). С. 149-161. URL: http://zpu-journal.ru/e-zpu/2015/1 /Brumfield West-Russia-Dostoevsky/ [архивировано в WebCite] (дата обращения: дд.мм.гггг). (На англ. яз.).

X 160

Citation: Brumfield, W. C. (2015) The West and Russia: Concepts of Inferiority in Dostoevsky's "The Adolescent". Informatsionnyi gumanitarnyi portal "Znanie. Ponimanie. Umenie", no. 1 (January — February), pp. 149-161. [online] Available at: http ://zpu-journal. ru/e -zpu/2015/1/Brumfield West-Russia-Dostoevsky/ [archived in WebCite] (accessed dd.mm.yyyy).

Дата поступления: 10.01.2015.

i Надоели баннеры? Вы всегда можете отключить рекламу.