Dostoevsky (199 page)

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