Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky

[Goodrum]

On the death of his child:

This little three-month-old creature, so poor, so tiny, was already a person and a character for me. She was beginning to know me, to love, and smile when I came near. When with my comical voice I used to sing songs to her, she liked to listen to them. . . . And now they say to me in consolation that I'll have other children. But where is Sonya? Where is this little personality for whom, I say boldly, I would accept the cross's agony if only she might be alive.

Though the Dostoevskys were to go on to have three more children, they would repeat this experience ten years later when the youngest, Alyosha, died at the age of three after a seizure of convulsions-apparently inherited from his father

Dostoyevsky on faith:

He himself writes that "I came from a pious Russian family. . . . In our family, we knew the Gospel almost from the cradle."

Notably, the book of Job made a deep impression on him at an early age ... he was raised in Moscow, "the city of innumerable churches . . . of palace and church combined," and his family made an annual spring excursion to a nearby monastery "One can gauge from such details," writes Frank, "how completely Dostoevsky's childhood immersed him in the spiritual and cultural atmosphere of Old Russian piety"

These strong childhood experiences furnished for Dostoevsky deep spiritual roots which imbued him with an almost fanatical love for Christ which he would retain all his life. It is essential to note when studying the spiritual struggles of Dostoevsky that because of this basic foundation developed as a child, he always approached the crises of his life as a Christian thoroughly examining his beliefs, not as an atheist daring the world to convince him.

Nonetheless, his was always a highly dynamic faith, with marked peaks and valleys. It would be a mistake to say that at any time he had gone "all the way" to one side or another, as his faith was constantly under evaluation. Hence during his years with the Socialist political circles in Petersburg, although he spent considerable time with and in fact followed affirmed atheists such as Belinsky and Petrashevsky, one can't simply brand Dostoevsky as an atheist at that time, though his faith certainly hit a low point then.
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[Goodrum]

That mock execution was a turning point for Dostoevsky. In the remarkable letter written to his brother Mikhail just hours afterwards, the author bewrays a renewed love for life, an intense gratitude at being given another chance, and a determination to be better that is reminiscent of Alma the Younger:


Brother, I'm not depressed and haven't lost spirit. Life everywhere is life, life is in ourselves and not in the external. . . . Life is a gift, life is happiness, every moment could have been an age of happiness. . . . Now, upon changing my life, I am born again in a new form. Brother! I swear to you that I will not lose hope and will preserve my spirit and my heart in purity. I'll be reborn to the better.

[Goodrum]

Dostoevsky's faith was never a static, finished creature but was instead highly dynamic, constantly probing and questioning. At times it may have appeared to be shaken. Indeed, this appearance of weakness or leaning the other way is occasionally so striking that many critics are convinced that that is, in fact, the "real" Dostoevsky.

But the "real" Dostoevsky is much more complex than that. The more trials the author was forced to face in his life, the more this faith was taxed. The more his faith was taxed, the deeper the answers which he developed-his own theodicy-had to probe, and hence the more convincing it became. He spared nothing on either side, throwing his whole soul into both questioning his beliefs and coming up with adequate answers to the problems presented. Biographer Joseph Frank uses the words of Soren Kierkegaard to describe the nature of Dostoevsky's faith:


"Whether I have faith," Kierkegaard wrote, "can never be ascertained by me with immediate certainty-for faith is precisely this dialectical hovering, which is unceasingly in fear and trembling but never in despair; faith is exactly this never-ending worry about oneself, which keeps one alert and ready to risk everything, this worry about oneself as to whether one truly has faith-and look! precisely this worry about oneself is faith."

In the midst of this "dialectical hovering," Dostoevsky examined and portrayed different types of evil and suffering, and the extreme depths to which man is actually capable of suffering, perhaps more penetratingly and effectively than any other author in history. In ruthlessly pressing these problems to their extreme end, Dostoevsky shows his depth of understanding of the issues involved and lends much-needed credibility to his proposed answers for the sufferer..

[Goodrum]

Raw, Uncut, Uncooked Healer:

Dostoevsky through his penetrating description of Raskolnikov's ongoing mental gymnastics vividly portrays the agonizing spiritual conflict that occurs in the heart of the fallen individual, the indecisiveness that plagues anyone who may be at a spiritual crossroads, forced to decide between good and evil at the risk of abandoning his entire ideology that he has developed up to that point.


In this sense the writer's artistic creation constitutes a unique process and quest for self-knowledge. On the surface this process is psychological, but beneath this exterior plane the questions disclose themselves as having fundamental ontological import: the image of God in man, the personality's immortality, freedom, sin. . . . Dostoevsky's heroes are spiritual, are pure consciousness.

They are tragically divided, but they strive to be reunited with themselves. They struggle and contend against one another while at the same time remain open to a communal synthesis.

[Goodrum]

"I'd die happy if I could finish this final novel," he wrote nearly a decade before, "for I would have expressed myself completely"

...his comments on the novel he was writing; 'The Brothers Karamazov'.

So this is what a Russian Healer writes like...


The Battlefield is the Heart of Man:

In the character of Dmitri we find another "Raskolnikov"-a "schism, or split." Still young, vibrant, and overflowing with passion, Dmitri's emotional state throughout the book is a precarious balance between the unfathomable depths of joy, the "irrational love of life"; and the unrestrained sin of sensuality, the chaotic element of sex.

"Before him are revealed two abysses-above and below"

. Like the hero of Crime and Punishment, Dmitri continually wavers between the two extremes, but unlike Raskolnikov he does so without calculating or excessive reasoning within himself but rather impulsively, allowing the first thought which enters his mind to be that which guides and consumes him. Hence he euphorically declaims Schiller's Hymn to Joy to Alyosha, but then identifies himself with the insects-to whom, the hymn says, is accorded "sensual lust" (Karamazov 96). All of which leads inevitably to the enigma of the ideal of beauty, as Mitya fully recognizes:


Beauty! I can't endure the thought that a man of lofty mind and heart begins with the ideal of the Madonna and ends with the ideal of Sodom. . . . The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man

It's rather beautiful. Beautiful and Ugly together.

[Narnia51483]

Your last line, Pam, reminded me of something I heard In my bible study class tonight... a man should be ugly, meaning he should wear himself out spiritually and in every other way for those he loves. I see this so many times in Dostoyevsky's writings, the sufferings of individual men.

I love his stuff.

[Goodrum]

I love his stuff

Didn't you study Literature Narnia? Did I remember right?

Incidently Alyosha Karamazov, from 'The Brothers Karamazov' novel is the character utilised in Stephen Montgomery's, "The Pygmalion Project Vol 3 The Idealist" for the Monastic, (Healer). Commences on page 43. "Strange from the cradle". Any wonder Dostoyevsky was able to capture him so well. --> Reconciler doing a spot of Reconciling...

[keirsey]

I'll buy Healer Idealist, Russian style, pre-revolution, of course.

Same Temperament Types usually can recognize each other the easiest.

[Narnia51483]

I did study literature, Pam.

I got confused though. In the Lit class in which we studied Dostoyevsky, we studied Tolstoy right after or right before him, and I was thinking about Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilyich". It's a very touching story, and just thinking about it makes me consider reading "War and Peace".

I do remember reading "Notes from the Underground" by Dostoyevsky, and it was much more hypothetical in tone. I should read it again.

[Goodrum]

From Alexander II, The Last Great Tsar pg 365-6 Chapter 15 'Fox Tail and Wolf Jaw' (Edvard Radzinsky)-a snapshot description of temperament in history:

Fedor Dostoyevsky gave a speech in 1880 about Pushkin, he delivered his speech at the unveiling of the Pushkin Monument in Moscow. The speech, or rather the wild enthusiasm which it inspired, is regarded as not only a historic moment in Russian literary history but a high water mark of Dostoevsky's public fame. It was done just six months before his death, the event eventually represented as much a memorial to him as to Pushkin.

What created this triumph? Firstly it was Dostoyevsky himself, "a hypnotic man". He came out to speak, with rounded shoulders, not very tall, head bent, tired eyes, hesitant gestures, and quiet voice.

He began dryly, as if wound tight, with no movements, not a single gesture; only his thin bloodless lips moved nervously when he spoke. But gradually, he was completely transformed. His small light brown eyes expanded and glowed. His arms moved imperiously. The audience entranced by the hypnotic power of his words, could not pull away from those eyes, from the gesturing hand of the prophet.

Referring to the topic of his speech:

It was desperately needed by the society divided by enmity; it was a uniting speech, so rarely popular in Russia. He addressed a crazed Russia vacillating at the brink.

In Dostoyevsky's speech there was no anger. No reproach. Only love for the lost, only one fervent prayer-to repent, to unite, and love one another.

He spoke of universal happiness....not accepting anything less.

With this love he appealed to the two ever-hostile camps, the Westernizers and Slavophiles, who called their war "holy". He told them there was no point in fighting each other, since there were no contradictions in their views.

"We must be Russian and be proud of it, the Slavophiles say. But to become a true Russian, you must be brother of all men...for the destiny of the Russian is indubitably European, universal, as the Westernizers dream...Oh, the nations of Europe, they do not even know how dear they are to us!"

He begged Russia to unite all in love, forgiveness, and humility before God.

It stunned the crowd, used to endless arguments, debate and malice.