On the problem of the evolution of Russian literary-critical thought about the work of F.M. Dostoevsky

Abstract

The article presents the evolution of the attitude of Russian literary critics and philosophers to the work of F.M. Dostoevsky. Starting with the writer's contemporaries, such as Vissarion Belinsky, their polar assessments are observed: admiration for Dostoevsky's debut, then severe criticism of his later works. His polemics toward Westernizers and liberals aggravated the misunderstanding of the writer's work. A new look at his legacy is evident in the works of Silver Age philosophers, including Nikolai Berdyaev and Semyon Frank. They drew attention to the profound religious sense of Dostoevsky's novels. In the last years of the existence of the Russian Empire and the first post-revolutionary decade, a community of Dostoevsky scholars emerged. Its representatives continued their activities under the new government, but it was a choice between independent opinion (which meant repression, as in the case of Mikhail Bakhtin and Sergei Fudel) and submission to the regime (Leonid Grossman’s, Arkady Dolinin’s works). Besides the critics of that time were forced to consider the writer’s masterpieces through the prism of Lenin's works (for example, Vladimir Ermilov). Since the turn of the 80s and 90s of the 20th century, scientists in search of a new interpretative approach have been returning to the ideas of philosophers of the Silver Age and increasingly paying attention to the religious principle in the works of the Russian classic. This trend continues in the 21st century.