Authors: Joseph Frank
On February 1, the day of the burial, a second edition of the
Diary
was published, its first page rimmed with a black border. At ten o’clock, a mass was performed in the church in the presence of Pobedonostsev and other high officials of the government, and this was followed by the
otpevanie
, the service for the dead. Father Yanishev then spoke a few words about his friend, all of whose work as a novelist, he said quite acutely, was an echo of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. The coffin, which remained closed on Pobedonostsev’s order so as to spare Anna and the children, was then carried to a plot in the cemetery adjoining the grave of the poet Zhukovsky. Lyubov gave a heartrending cry, which moved all those present to their depths when she exclaimed: “Good-bye [
proshchai
, which can also mean forgive], dear, kind, good papa, good-bye.”
47
Various people spoke at the grave, and Popov, who climbed a tree to get a better view above the crowd, recalled “the apostolic figure of V. S. Solovyev
[with his] curls falling on his forehead,” “who spoke with great pathos and expressiveness.”
48
Let us end with some of Solovyev’s words, ones not spoken at the grave site but days earlier (January 30) in the lectures he was giving both at the University of St. Petersburg and at the Bestuzhev Higher Courses for Women, whose students were among Dostoevsky’s most fervent admirers. To the first, he said, “last year, at the Pushkin festival, Dostoevsky called Pushkin a prophet, but Dostoevsky himself deserves this title to an even greater degree.” To the female students, he declared: “Just as the highest worldly power somehow or other becomes concentrated in one person, who represents a state, similarly the highest spiritual power in each epoch usually belongs in every people to one man, who more clearly than all grasps the spiritual ideals of mankind, more consciously than all strives to attain them, more strongly than all affects others by his preachments. Such a spiritual leader of the Russian people in recent times was Dostoevsky.”
49
1
DVS
, 2: 475.
2
Letopis zhizni i tvorchestvo F. M. Dostoevskogo
, ed. N. F. Budanova and G. M. Fridlender, 3 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1995), 3: 503.
3
PSS
, 28/Bk. 1: 176; February 20, 1854.
4
Ibid., 30/Bk. 1: 232; December 3, 1880.
5
Ibid., 232–233.
6
Letopis
, 3: 513.
7
Cited in G. M. Fridlender, “D. S. Merezhkovsky i Dostoevsky,” in
Dostoevsky
—
materialy i issledovaniya
, vol. 10 (St. Petersburg, 1992), 4.
8
DVS
, 2: 363–364.
9
Ibid.
10
Letopis
, 3: 529.
11
Anna Dostoevsky,
Reminiscences
, trans. and ed. Beatrice Stillman (New York, 1975), 341.
12
DVS
, 2: 195.
13
Cited in I. Volgin,
Posledny god Dostoevskogo
(Moscow, 1986), 387.
14
Letopis
, 3: 526–527.
15
DVS
, 2: 469–470.
16
Letopis
, 3: 536.
17
Ibid., 3: 535–536;
DVS
, 2: 473.
18
Letopis
, 3: 539.
19
Volgin,
Posledny god Dostoevskogo
, 414. My chapter on Dostoevsky’s last days is greatly indebted to Volgin’s book.
20
Ibid., 416–418.
21
Ibid.
22
See Victor Shklovsky,
Za i protiv
(Moscow, 1957), 254–255. Even though the official documents give the number of Barannikov’s apartment as 11, Shklovsky continues to maintain, without offering evidence, that the number was changed in the official documents.
23
Volgin,
Posledny god Dostoevskogo
, 436.
24
Letopis
, 3: 543.
25
Volgin,
Posledny god Dostoevskogo
, 420.
26
PSS
, 30/Bk. 1: 242–243; January 28, 1881.
27
Reminiscences
, 345–346.
28
Ibid.
29
Ibid., 346.
30
Volgin,
Posledny god
, 422.
31
Letopis
, 3: 545–546.
32
Reminiscences
, 348.
33
Volgin,
Posledny god
, 429–430.
34
Reminiscences
, 351.
35
Letopis
, 3: 547–548.
36
Reminiscences
, 352.
37
Ibid.
38
Letopis
, 3: 550.
39
Ibid., 551.
40
Ibid.
41
DVS
, 2: 246.
42
Ibid., 479.
43
Letopis
, 3: 554.
44
DVS
, 2: 480.
45
Cited in Volgin,
Posledny god
, 495.
46
Reminiscences
, 359.
47
Letopis
, 3: 561.
48
DVS
, 2: 478.
49
Letopis
, 3: 548, 553.
I was delighted when Joseph Frank asked if I would compose the one-volume edition of his monumental five-volume work on Dostoevsky. As I reread the volumes to formulate some principles for editing, it became clear that the rich detail (of biography, literary culture, ideology) is employed in a singular manner—namely, to bring out the full power of Dostoevsky’s work. All of the stories and novels are then analyzed, as literary texts, in separate, self-contained chapters. Frank doesn’t analyze the literary work as a window into Dostoevsky’s life and times, quite the reverse; and what he achieves in the process is a literary criticism that gives the reader the most intense and clearest possible impression of the fiction.
My aim as I set to work was to maintain that brilliant balance of biography, literary criticism, and intellectual history that Joseph Frank originated; and to keep as well the “novelistic” narrative style so appropriate to the life of Dostoevsky. The challenge was to do this while cutting nearly two-thirds of the original material. I therefore went through several editing rounds carefully, cutting more each round, summarizing more each round, reorganizing or rewriting passages as needed for narrative cohesion. I frequently combined two, three, or even four chapters of the original volumes into one chapter. For the major novels, I maintained a separate chapter or chapters for the analysis of the literary text, as in the original volumes, though condensing as necessary. For some of the early minor works, however, I was forced to weave Frank’s analysis of the literary text into the narrative; and I did this by cutting much of the plot summary and focusing on the key ideas of the work and its significance for Dostoevsky’s development as a writer, or for the development of important themes in Dostoevsky’s greatest novels. Despite the cuts, the essential material of the original is preserved.
My warmest thanks to Robin Feuer Miller for reading the first draft of the condensation side by side with the original and for her suggestions for restoring text; to Joseph Frank for his meticulous review of the condensation in its final stages; and to Hanne Winarsky, whose idea it was to bring out this edition, for her generous and steadfast support.
Mary Petrusewicz is an independent scholar, writer, and translator who lectures in Russian literature and history at Stanford University
.
The index that appeared in the print version of this title was intentionally removed from the eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below
Abaza, N. S.
Abaza, Yulia
Abrams, M. H.
Academy of Military Engineers
accusatory literature
Acta Martyrum
aesthetics.
See
beauty
afterlife.
See
immortality of the soul
agit-prop literature
Akhsharumov, D. D.
Aksakov, Ivan
Aksakov, Konstantin
Aksakov, S. T.
Alchevskaya, Khristina
Alexander I, tsar
Alexander II, tsar: assassination attempts on
assassination of
The Citizen
and
era of proclamations and
FMD’s anniversary address to
FMD’s ideas about tsarism and
FMD’s relationship with royal family
liberation of the serfs and
Nechaev and
and peace with Turkey
reforms of
revolutionary leaflets and
Alexander, tsarevich (later Alexander III):
FMD presents
Diary of a Writer
to
FMD presents
The Brothers Karamazov
to
and financial assistance to FMD
Alexander Mikhailovich, Grand Duke
Alexandrov, Mikhail
alter ego.
See
quasi-double
Ambrose, Father
Annenkov, P. V.: as chronicler
as critic
FMD’s relationship with
literary/aesthetic philosophy of
Pushkin festival and
Works: The Extraordinary Decade
“The Weak Person as a Literary Type”
Annenkova, Mme.
ant-hill
Antichrist
anti-semitism.
See
Yids/“Yiddish ideas”
Antonelli, P. D.
Antonovich, M. A.
Works
: “The Asmodeus of Our Time”
Aristov, Pavel
as model for character of Svidrigailov
Arnold, Matthew, Works: “Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse”
Arsenyev, D. S.
art: Belinsky on
Chernyshevsky on
FMD and
in
Letters on Art
in
Netotchka Nezvanova
A. Grigoryev on
Idealist philosophy and
V. Maikov on
Milyukov Circle on
Utilitarianism and
atheism: First International and
FMD and
in
Atheism
(intended)
in
The Brothers Karamazov
in
Demons
in
The Idiot
in
A Raw Youth
in “The Sentence”
Nihilism and
of 1860s generation
of 1870s generation
Socialism and
Atheism
(Dostoevsky)
Auerbach, Erich
Augier, Emile
Austen, Jane
autocratic rule.
See
tsarism
autonomy.
See also
free will
Bakhtin, Mikhail
Bakunin, M. A.
Balkan Slavs, liberation of
Balosoglo, A. P.
Balzac, Honoré de
Works
:
César Birotteau
Eugénie Grandet
Les illusions perdues
L’Illustre Gaudissart
Le père Goriot
Barannikov, Alexander
Bardini, Sophia
Barruel, Augustin de, Abbé,
Works
:
Mémoires pour servir à l’historie du Jacobinisme
Baudelaire, Charles
beauty.
See also
art
Beethoven, Ludwig von
Beguny
(Runners, Wanderers) sect
Beketov, Aleksey N.
Beketov Circle
Belikhov, Lt. Col.
Belinsky, V. G.
assessments of FMD by
authors promoted/criticized by
background of
death of
on
feuilletons
FMD’s relationship with
literary/aesthetic philosophy of
moral/religious philosophy of
national character/nationality and
Pléiade
portrait of in
Diary of a Writer
reputation of
social/political philosophy of
Utopian Socialism and
Works: Letter to Gogol
Literary Reveries
A View of Russian Literature of 1846
Bell, The
(Herzen)
Bely, Andrey
Bentham, Jeremy
Berdyaev, Nicolas
Berezhetsky, Ivan: FMD’s relationship with
Bernard, Claude
Bernshtam, Leopold
Bervi-Flerovsky, V. V.
Bestuzhev (pseud. Marlinsky), A. A.
Bestuzhev-Ryumin, K. N.
Bezdna uprising
Bible, the
Gospels
Job, Book of
John, Gospel of
Luke, Gospel of
Matthew, Gospel of
New Testament
Prodigal Son, Parable of
Revelation, Book of
Timothy, Epistle to
Blanc, Louis,
Works
:
Histoire des dix ans
Boguslawski, Joszef
Boris Godunov, tsar
Boris Godunov
(Dostoevsky)
Botkin, V. P.
Brombert, Victor
brotherhood.
See
fraternity
Brothers Karamazov, The
(Dostoevsky)
ant-hill in
atheism in
beauty in
children in
Cleopatra character type in
compassion in
confession in
conversion experiences in
determinism in
epigraph of
“evangelical socialism” in
faith/moral conscience
vs
. reason in
familial chaos in
fathers/fatherhood in
folk
tradition in
forgiveness in
freedom/free will in