Why is Dostoevsky great? He expresses the depth of the human soul

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Dostoevsky finally won the universal recognition he had always longed for in the last years of his life. While recounting Dostoevsky's special relationship with the Russian ruling clique, Joseph Frank, emeritus professor emeritus of Princeton University and Stanford University in the United States, also details his ongoing rivalry with Turgenev and Tolstoy in his five-volume book Dostoevsky. Less than a year before his death in June 1880, the appearance of the Pushkin Memorial marked the culmination of Dostoevsky's literary career – and his life as a spokesman for the Russian spirit. His famous speech on Pushkin at the event lifted the audience's emotions and boiled with enthusiasm: "We do not rely on the universality of the sword soldiers, but on the strength of fraternity, on our concerted efforts to reunite mankind into a big family." This is Dostoevsky, who has become a world literary heritage, although he still cannot embody such lofty ideals at every moment.

The writer's death in St. Petersburg in January 1881 brought to an end this unparalleled literary biography. This is a truly biographical work of Dostoevsky's genius, and worthy of the extraordinary era he experienced and the magical land in which he lived.

Hemingway once said that the psychological world of the 19th-century Russian writer Dostoevsky, who wrote "The Brothers Karamazov", "Crime and Punishment", "Idiots", and "The Devil", was an interweaving between madness and vulnerability, viciousness and sacredness. Nietzsche put it more absolutely: "He was the only psychologist who taught me." But Dostoevsky denied a similar outside evaluation: "They call me a psychologist, which is not realistic." I am only a realist in a higher sense, that is, I express the depth of the human soul. ”

The Brothers Karamazov is Dostoevsky's last work. In a letter to a friend, he wrote: "I am finishing The Brothers Karamazov; so I am finishing a masterpiece, at least one that I value, because I have put a lot of effort into it... I've been writing intensely with all my might, full of pain and worry. Even people fell ill when I was struggling to write. The last part of Frank Joseph's biography Dostoevsky, Dostoevsky: The Pinnacle of Literature, 1871-1881, restores the ins and outs of the novel in a large number of pages, and interprets the work in a 200-page, chapter-by-chapter panorama.

What exactly do we focus on when we read The Brothers Karamazov? The Brothers Karamazov is full of metaphysical discussions. How did Dostoevsky create The Brothers Karamazov? What kind of message does he hope to convey to the reader in this final collection? Are there any conclusions about which cursed questions? What human fate does The Brothers Karamazov foresee? Dostoevsky: The Pinnacle of Literature, 1871-1881 What unique perspective and perspective does Dostoev offer in interpreting the Brothers Karamazov? Guangxi Normal University Publishing House Shanghai Bebet "Literary Monuments" series of books and Triple Reading invited Zhang Hui from shanghai Chinese University of Russia's Eastern European and Central Asia College, Wei Dong, editor of the five-volume Dostoevsky commentary, and host of the literary monument, to share dostoevsky's pinnacle work , "The Brothers Karamazov".

It is not a speculative fiction, it involves metaphysical problems

Wei Dong: The theme of our activity today is to follow Joseph Frank's five-volume biography of Dostoevsky and read the writer's tome," The Brothers Karamazov. I am Wei Dong, the literary editor-in-chief of Guangxi Normal University Press Shanghai Company, and I am surrounded by a special guest invited today, Zhang Hui, a teacher at Shanghai University of Foreign Chinese.

Mr. Zhang is an expert in the study of Russian literature, and today I will start with the fifth volume of this biography, and Mr. Zhang will share the great work of "The Brothers Karamazov" in detail for us.

Today's event originated from a series of books "Literary Monuments" by Guangxi Normal University Press. Dostoevsky's biographies, memoirs, and diaries are the cornerstones of our series, while the five-volume biography of Dostoevsky, professor emeritus of Princeton University and Stanford University, is the crowning work of the entire series. The set is divided into five volumes, the first volume was published in 2014, like an American drama, season after season, and the fifth volume is finally published now.

Frank's biography is truly imposing. Divided into five volumes, the first is from Towon's initial entry into the literary world, which tells of his arrest and exile in Siberia because of the Petraszewski Group Incident; the second volume is about his crucifixion between 1850 and 1859; the third volume is about his magazine in the early 1860s, and his return to the Russian literary scene through a series of works, of which "The Basement Notebook" became a watershed in his creation and the original motivation for Frank's writing of this biography; the fourth volume is about his world-famous novels "Crime and Punishment", "Idiot". The fifth volume records the last decade of Dostoevsky's life, which reached the pinnacle of his reputation and the pinnacle of his literary creation through the publication of the novel "The Boy", the creation of the private magazine "The Writer's Diary", the creation of "The Brothers Karamazov" and his inaugural speech on the Pushkin statue in Moscow. The fifth volume deals with the last glorious decade of Dostoevsky's life, during which the creation of The Brothers Karamazov was the signature work of Dostoevsky's peak. This work is also an epoch-making milestone in the history of world literature. Although the novel is the longest of Tovon's works, it is not difficult to read in fact. Next, I would like to share our own interesting experience with Tovon, especially the Brothers Karamazov.

Dostoevsky's study in St. Petersburg, where he wrote The Brothers Karamazov

Zhang Hui: Friends who are familiar with or interested in Russian literature will know that Dostoevsky was one of the most brilliant and dazzling masters of Russian literature in the 19th century. The age of his writing, from the 1840s to the 1870s, was also the peak of Russian realist literature.

The character relationship of "Brothers Karamazov" is not complicated, and if it is discussed in the context of 19th-century Russian realist novels, the characters are relatively limited, and the relationship between the characters is relatively simple, unlike "War and Peace", more than 500 characters at once, and the difficulty of reading will be greater.

Reading this book, the reader will feel at first that this is a novel with a family crisis as the core of the plot, revolving around a father-killing case. In fact, there is a lot of discussion about philosophy, society, and religion behind this unsolved case.

I watched "The Brothers Karamazov" for the first time when I was in college. Like many people, the first Dostoevsky I read was Crime and Punishment. At first, I also read Crime and Punishment as a suspense novel or a crime novel. If you just rush past Dostoevsky's works, you may think of them as second-rate detective novels. If you read it closely, you will find that it involves many metaphysical problems. As a researcher of Russian literature, I went back and found that The Brothers Karamazov was a very thick book in terms of both breadth and depth.

Wei Dong: The first Dostoevsky novel I read myself was The Brothers Karamazov, and then I read Crime and Punishment. But at the time, I did not know that "The Brothers Karamazov" had such a lofty status. Reading this book in my junior year, I was immediately attracted.

I was able to empathize with the characters in The Brothers Karamazov, especially the elder Mika.

Zhang Hui: There are large psychological monologues in "The Brothers Karamazov", and there is a strong sense of visual oppression. Psychological monologues are long natural paragraphs, one paragraph occupies a page. Don't skip these passages, which is the core of "The Brothers Karamazov".

Wei Dong: Under normal circumstances, people don't speak for such a long time, but in the novel, it is allowed, especially if you enter dostoevsky's literary world, whether it is a few pages of inner monologues or dialogues, dostoevsky's unique ideas are integrated into it.

Don't rebel against grief, you have the power to grieve

A one-page manuscript of the Brothers Karamazov

Zhang Hui: It is a great honor to share with you today my understanding and understanding of the novel "Brothers Karamazov". In the meantime, I'll talk about the novel in conjunction with Frank's biography of Dostoevsky. In Frank's Dostoevsky: The Pinnacle of Literature, 1871-1881, three works are involved, The Boy and the Writer's Diary, the most important of which is The Brothers Karamazov.

The peculiarity of this biography is that it cuts into the Brothers Karamazov from multiple angles, and Frank not only focuses on Dostoevsky's creative history, but also does a very detailed textual analysis. On the one hand, Frank discusses the connection between the book, Dostoevsky, and all aspects of Russia in that era, starting from the writer and his time. On the other hand, in the chapter of The Brothers Karamazov, reading the book chapter by chapter takes us to understand the Brothers Karamazov from multiple perspectives.

The Brothers Karamazov was written in the late period of Dostoevsky's writing, mainly from 1878 to 1880, for almost three years, beginning in January 1879 and serialized in the Russian Herald for almost two years.

By the end of the 1960s, Dostoevsky had conceived the novel Atheism, and a year later he had appeared in his notes—his creative process can be seen in his notes, letters, and memoirs—and the title of The Great Sinner appeared. He wanted to write about an atheist, in Russia at the time, how the protagonist met an elder in a monastery, and through the guidance of the elders, gradually converted, and eventually became an Orthodox Christian.

If we look at The Brothers Karamazov, we will find that the protagonist Alyosha, who appears first, is also a monk in the monastery. But there is definitely a difference between his setting for the protagonist at the beginning of "The Legend of the Great Sinner". In the setting of The Great Sinner, Dostoevsky also mentions a name - Gihon of Zatonsk. He was a bishop in 18th-century Russia. In Brothers Karamazov there is a character named Elder Zosima, and Gihon is one of his prototypes. In another very famous novel by Dostoevsky, The Group of Demons, Gihon also appears, and a very important chapter of it uses The name of Gihon. The origin of Alyosha's line appeared in the late 1960s.

In the 1970s, another line in The Brothers Karamazov appeared, the line of Mija (Dmitry). In the 1970s, Dostoevsky really began to conceive of writing a masterpiece, or a comprehensive work. He wanted to borrow a character from his earlier novel, The Dead House. As you can see in Frank's biography of Dostoevsky, Dostoevsky spent several years in a prison in Omsk, Siberia, where he met a criminal named Illiminsky, whose name does not appear in the Dead House, but Dostoevsky explained it. The Illiminsky was convicted of killing his father, and ten years later it was discovered that he had been wrong, but he was not the murderer. Where did Micah's line come from? In The Dead House Notebook, Illiminsky begins.

When reading Frank's biography of Dostoevsky, you will read a lot of details about the Writer's Diary. The book "The Brothers Karamazov" dramatizes many of the ideas in the Writer's Diary. "The Writer's Diary" is a very rebuttal work, which is sometimes commented on, and there are expressions of Dostoevsky's philosophical views... "The Writer's Diary" is more like a work of political discussion, Dostoevsky dramatizes these views and interprets them into a story, and "The Writer's Diary" is an important origin of the writing of "The Karamazov Brothers".

The shadow of "The Brothers Karamazov" already appeared in the late 60s. In the 80s, a major event happened to Dostoevsky himself, which greatly touched him and indirectly influenced him to write "The Brothers Karamazov".

His youngest son Alyosha died in 1978, and the death of his younger son had a great impact on him. He decided to go to oputa Monastery, a very famous monastery in Russia, and met the Elder Amfrosi, who gave him a lot of spiritual comfort. We can immediately think of the protagonist in "Brothers Karamazov" named Alyosha, and in the book there is also the image of Elder Zosima. One of the prototypes of Elder Zosima was Elder Amfrosi of opta Monastery. There is a detail in the novel that Elder Zosima receives many requests for help from peasant women, one of whom has just died, so she comes to seek the comfort of Elder Zosima. Much of what Elder Zosima said at that time came from what Elder Amfrosi said to Dostoevsky in real life.

Wei Dong: That passage was particularly moving.

Zhang Hui: "Cry, don't resist sadness, you have the right to be sad." "It actually comes from his personal experience.

From the recollections of his wife, Anna Grigorievna, it is a touching detail to say that Dostoevsky carried in the character of Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov, the hope that he had once had for his young son, and he projected this hope onto the character of Alyosha.

(Unfinished, see sub-article for follow-up content)

(This section is an interview with Joseph Frank for the book Dostoevsky, published with permission from The Shanghai Bebet Guangxi Normal University Press.) ）

| of Humanities and Social Sciences Translated book | literature

Dostoevsky

By Joseph Frank

Translated by Dai Dahong and Liu Jialin

Shanghai Babet Guangxi Normal University Press

March 2022

Joseph Frank (1918–2013) Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at Princeton University and Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and Slavic Languages and Literatures at Stanford University. His five-volume dostoevsky (1976-2002) has won the National Book Critics Club Award (in the biography category), the Christian Gauss Award twice (of the American College Distinguished Student Association), the James Russell Lowell Award (of the Modern Language Association), the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and other honors. He is also the author of Russian Prism: Essays on Literature and Culture (1990), Spatial Forms of the Modern Novel (1991), Between Religion and Reason: Essays on Russian Literature and Culture (2010), Responding to Modernity: Essays on Cultural Politics (2012), and Dostoevsky's Lectures (2020).

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