Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born on November 11, 200 years ago, into a family of Russian doctors who were not wealthy, and the name now symbolizes the pinnacle of world literature. Very few people can reach dostoevsky's fanatical state when writing, his madness, passion, repression, and his soul fragmented; the voices of different schools of thought vibrate in his head at the same time, giving himself a fragment of personality in each character.
At the same time, it is precisely because of this hysterical, soul-splitting writing that Dostoevsky's novels have a sharpness that is difficult to match in other realist works. The dialogue of the characters from the soul of the novel shatters the chaotic state of reality, allowing people to either walk towards bright redemption and ideals or step into the deep darkness. Moreover, his characters also inherit a state in which not only the writer himself is fragmented in the world of Toshi, but also the characters of the novel. In the book, he created a group of people with indomitable personalities and innocent ideals, but the bodies of these small people are usually tortured and fragmented in reality, which makes people feel the sharpness of that personality while lamenting its smallness and fragility.
In such writing, he completes the direct collision between the soul of the character and the soul of the reader, and it is difficult for the reader not to be touched in the face of Dostoevsky's sentences, and at the same time, in the impact of the text, he has carved out a deep and twisted channel to understand different levels of reality in the contradictions of ideal and reality, sin and salvation, innocence and evil.
This article is from the Beijing News Book Review Weekly's November 5 feature "Broken and Sharp Soul" b02-b03.
"Theme" b01 丨 Fragmented and sharp soul: the 200th anniversary of Dostoevsky's birth
Theme b02-b03 | Two Dostoevsky
"Theme" b04-b05丨 Dostoevsky, a follower of the fate of mankind
Theme b06-b07 | A romantic transformation
Interview b08 | Zhang Li: Back to the scene where women's writing happened
Written by | Wang Zhigeng
Epileptic state of life
Dostoevsky suffered from epilepsy all his life, but he never thought it was a pain, but instead described his illness as follows: "In this instant, I experienced a happiness that would not normally have occurred and that others could not understand. I felt the perfect harmony between myself and the whole world, this feeling is so strong, so sweet, in order to have a few seconds of such happiness, I can give up ten years of life, even if I give my life. In the state of seizures, Dostoevsky entered another realm of life, which gave him a different sense of life than ordinary people, and made him aware of the dual existence of man. And his whole life is a model for this dual existence.
Dostoevsky was born on November 11, 1821, in Moscow to a family of doctors, and his father earned a fortune on his own and bought a farm in the countryside, but was later beaten to death on the farm. Dostoevsky was only 18 years old at the time, attending the military engineering school in Petersburg, and it is said that his father's death caused his first severe seizures of epilepsy, which followed from time to time, especially when he became a writer and was at his most creative, and it was also the most frequent period of epilepsy seizures, even once a week. However, perhaps epilepsy gave him a "second sight" that was different from ordinary people, able to see the most secret psychological dynamics of human beings, and able to experience the feeling of being with God that mortals in the ordinary world could not experience. Therefore, in his later years, he wrote the novel "The Idiot", which created the image of the epileptic Patient Myshkin, in which he embodied the writer's ideal of a good personality, and through his eyes, rejudged those trapped in the quagmire of evil desires.
Freud believed that in Dostoevsky's rich personality, four aspects can be distinguished: creative artists, neurotics, moralists, and sinners. This is from the point of view of a psychoanalyst, and we should see from the level of Dostoevsky as an intellectual who made a great contribution to the development of Russian culture that there are two Dostoevsky in him, one as a thinker and one dostoevsky as an artist.
Dostoevsky.
The experience of escaping death
In the history of Russian thought, there have long been two tendencies, or two factions, one Western and the other Slavic. From the time of Peter the Great in the early 18th century, there was an endless debate over the direction of Russia's development, with one faction advocating the western path and the introduction of Western culture, such as Enlightenment ideas, science and technology, management systems, lifestyles, etc., while the other advocating a return to the Orthodox Slavic culture, strengthening faith, rebuilding the moral system, and establishing a more rational social system in the tradition of village communities (primitive rural communes). Dostoevsky, on the other hand, was a staunch Slavic thinker. In his youth, Dostoevsky was enthusiastic about literary creation, and on the other hand, like all Russian intellectuals of that era, actively explored the question of Russia's way out. But as his wife later put it in her memoirs, "he was preoccupied with political struggle, but paid a terrible price for it."
After graduating from the Military Engineering School, Dostoevsky joined the Corps of Engineers as a draftsman, and after only a little more than a year, he applied for retirement and decided to devote himself to literary writing. He then published his novel The Poor Man, which was highly appreciated by Belinsky and became famous in the literary world. During this period, he was also ideologically influenced by Belinsky's ideas of socialism, although he did not agree with the latter's ideas of violent revolution. In 1847 Dostoevsky began to participate in the underground activities organized by the social activist Petraszewski in Petersburg, the first "group" in Russia to devote himself to the study of socialist doctrine, and they studied Western European utopian socialism, especially Fourier's theory, while discussing issues such as the reform of serfdom, justice, and the press system in Russia.
The group's activities quickly caught the attention of the Tsarist regime, and in the early morning of April 23, 1849, Dostoevsky was arrested by the Petersburg Gendarmerie at his home, after which he was imprisoned with more than 30 members of the group in the Peter and Paul Fortress, until December, when 21 members of the group were "sentenced to death", including Dostoevsky. This death sentence was actually a practice of the Tsar, that is, the death penalty was first imposed and then changed to other sentences, a process that was not known to the prisoners, and the death penalty procedure was held until the execution ground issued the "shoot" order, and the decision to change the sentence was read out, in this way destroying the mental defense line of the political prisoner.
So, at 7 o'clock in the morning of December 22, 1849, when it was still dark at the high latitude of Petersburg, Dostoevsky and a group of prisoners were escorted to the execution ground under the miserable white horse lights, the prosecutor first read the death sentence, then made the prisoners kneel, the executioner broke the steel sword on their heads according to the ancient custom, the priest took the cross and let the prisoner kiss, and then changed them into the white burial clothes of the condemned prisoners. At this time, the first to step onto the death table were the three leaders of The Petraszewski's group, and Dostoevsky was in the second group, and he heard Petraszewski laughing in the face of death, and his "mind was like a kaleidoscope, and the whole life was like lightning flashing through the mind like lightning." In a later letter to his brother, he recalled: "I was standing in the second row, so I had less than a minute left in my life. Brother, I think of you, I think of your whole family... I quickly hugged Pleseyev and Durov, who were standing beside me, and said goodbye to them..." They heard the executioner issue the order to "reload" and "aim," but for half a minute they could not hear the final command, and at this time, a messenger who had been waiting in the distance came forward and handed the execution commander a document, which was the final sentence changed: "Lieutenant Fyodor Dostoevsky of the retired engineers ... He was assigned to the (Siberian) fortress for four years of hard labor, after which he was converted to a private army. ”
Cover of the first edition of Crime and Punishment.
The formation of a dual personality
Some believe that Dostoevsky went from a radical social reformer to a royalist after this death sentence. In fact, this statement does not hold true, although in his later years he proposed "the close unity of the people and the monarch". Dostoevsky was never a radical reformer, nor did he ever change the socialist ideal in his mind, except that it was not beberinsky's ideal of overthrowing the upper class and handing over power to the lower class, but his ideal was to achieve socialism based on the Orthodox idea of fraternity.
He wrote in the Writer's Diary: "The goal and end of this socialism is to achieve the whole nation and the global church on the earth. ...... I am speaking of the eternal and inexhaustible desire in the hearts of the Russian people, of the great, common, universal, fraternal unity to be achieved in the name of Christ. ...... Socialism of the Russian people is not communism, nor is it a mechanical form, they believe in salvation of universal unity that can ultimately be achieved only in the name of Christ. This is our Russian socialism! "The insistence on the idea of Christ for the realization of an ideal society has never changed in Dostoevsky's case. Obviously, this is a utopian social ideal, but this is precisely what characterizes Dostoevsky as a Slavic thinker. Throughout his life's literary activities, he also continued to write political essays expressing his ideological stance, and even from 1876 onwards published a series of books he wrote alone, "The Writer's Diary", directly participating in the discussion of the real problems of Russian society, which also established his status as a great Russian thinker.
Illustration of Crime and Punishment.
Dostoevsky as a thinker was a staunch Slavic, while Dostoevsky as an artist was a dialogueist, that is, to keep all ideological positions open to dialogue, without allowing any one position to become the final monologue discourse. Such a "dual personality" constitutes a perfect unity in Dostoevsky, or rather, the "complete harmony of the whole world" experienced when his epileptic seizures are exactly the state in which he enters the art world.
Dostoevsky served 4 years of hard labor in Siberia, then served in the military until 1859 before returning to St. Petersburg. During his service he married a local woman, Isayeva, and unfortunately, after returning to Petersburg for 4 years, his wife died and the two had no children. During his ten years in Siberia, Dostoevsky's literary work was interrupted, and he returned to his old business. But writing alone was difficult to make a living, and Crime and Punishment, which later brought him great fame, was delayed in finishing the manuscript, and he also had to take care of his elder brother's family, who were heavily indebted to running a magazine. In September 1866 he had to sign a contract with the publisher to submit a new manuscript of the novel by November 1, in addition to selling the rights to his previous work. But until the deadline approaching, Dostoevsky has not begun to write, and if he does not submit the manuscript by the deadline, he will not only not get paid, but also pay liquidated damages. At this time, it was proposed that he dictate the novel and ask the stenographer to record it. He accepted the advice and hired Anna Snitkina, a 20-year-old stenographer, to assist him with his writing. He dictated during the day, Anna recorded, and Anna compiled the transcription at night, so that from October 4 to 29, it took only 26 days to complete the novel "The Gambler". The deal allowed Dostoevsky to temporarily escape the economic crisis and at the same time gain love. In February 1867, Dostoevsky married Anna, and this marriage also regenerated his life and creation, and since then he has created a series of great works, such as "Idiot", "Group of Demons", "Teenager", "Karamazov Brothers" and so on. Until Dostoevsky's death on February 9, 1881, Anna spent 14 years with him.
Biography of Dostoevsky, by Andreas Gusky. Translator: Qiang Zhaohui. | Social Sciences Academic Press, October 2021.
"Polyphony" in the Language of Fiction
The 20th-century philosopher Bakhtin believed that Dostoevsky had created a unique form, which he used the musical term "polyphony" to represent it. The so-called polyphony is like the harmony in a symphony, in the novel, different positions and values are emitting voices, and these voices are competing with each other, not one over the other, but always maintaining an equal and open dialogue. Even if one of these voices sounds correct, the writer does not allow it to occupy the position of monologue, including those who clearly represent the Slavic position of Dostoevsky himself and his discourse, and the author will not let it show a special advantage in the dialogue.
This kind of writing can sometimes feel lengthy for some readers, but in fact there is a profound clash of human ideas and concepts in these dialogues. For example, in "Brothers Karamazov", Ivan tells the story of a religious magistrate and Jesus, which is roughly the following: When Jesus was not there, the religious magistrate used his power to control the people, and then Jesus suddenly appeared and attracted the people controlled by the religious justices, so in the novel, the religious justices spent more than ten pages telling Jesus his "truth". The basic idea of the judges of religion is that Jesus tried to save the masses by giving people a free faith, but only the benefits seen in the eyes of the masses were profits—miracles or bread; therefore, if Jesus did not use miracles, then the justices of the religion who held control of bread could raise their arms and make the people rise up to overthrow the power of Jesus and follow the justices; because in the final analysis, only "bread" can solve the "universal and eternal troubles" of all mankind, and whoever holds the bread is God. In this story, the dialogue between Jesus and the Judge of Religion is a microcosm of the dialogue between freedom and bread in human history. There is no doubt that human existence requires bread, but the difference between human beings and animals is that in addition to bread, they also need freedom. Bread, as the immediate material interest of mankind, is always the first living condition for mankind to consider, or we can ask the question: If human beings only have freedom and no bread, can they? Of course not. So, in this way, the religious magistrate is given a full right to dialogue in the novel, and Jesus does not say a word until the end, but simply goes forward and kisses the ninety-year-old justice on the lips and turns away.
Dostoevsky: The Writer and His Time, by Joseph Frank. Mary Petrusevitz, eds. Translators: Wang Chen, Chu Jinyi, Wang Jiayu, Li Sha. Sanhui Books | China Overseas Chinese Publishing House, October 2019.
It is worth noting that Dostoevsky was a staunch, even fanatical Slavic, but in the novel, Dostoevsky, as an artist, never allows the people who represent his position to express his opinion at length, as he did in his political essays, let alone let these positions representing the Orthodox faith become the decisive positions of dialogue.
As we all know, in Sin and Punishment, the poor prostitute Sonia is the ideal personality in Dostoevsky's mind, and the prototype of this character is the Magdalene Mary who firmly followed Jesus after being saved by Jesus in the Bible, this type of figure, although of humble origin and sinful flesh, has a pure soul and a strong faith. In the novel, Law student Raskolnikov kills the old woman who lends money at a loan shark because he thinks he is righteous, and it is only at Sonia's inspiration that he turns himself in to the police station. However, he never professed his sins before Sonia, never expressed his repentance to convert to God, and Sonia never tried to persuade Raskolnikov with religious preaching, but only read him the gospel story about lazarus's resurrection. It is not until the end of the novel that Raskolnikov brings out the Gospel he asked Sonia for, but the novel comes to an abrupt end. Because, in his art world, not only can Raskolnikov and the violent claims of the assassination team in "The Devil" become the voice of monologues, but even as the voice of Orthodox ideal Slavism, it is worth vigilance.
From the artist's standpoint, Dostoevsky's view was that any voice that claimed to have absolute truth could bring disaster to humanity, even a Christian voice. In European history, within the Christian church, it was only because of the power struggles of the church that how many acts of cannibalism occurred between people who also believed in God, and these murderers claimed to have mastered the truth of the true God.
Sonia in Crime and Punishment.
Reflections on "duality" in later years
Dostoevsky pondered the question of the duality of man throughout the course of his life, and in his later years, in 1880, a young female painter wrote to Dostoevsky asking about the duality she felt in herself, saying in his reply: "This division in you is exactly the same as what has happened in me and which I can feel throughout my life." It's a lot of pain, and it's a lot of enjoyment at the same time. It is a powerful consciousness, a need for introspection, indicating that there is a need in your nature for the self and for human beings to fulfill their moral obligations. This is what this duality means. If your intellect is not so developed, if your gaze were mediocre, then there would be less condemnation of conscience, and there would be no such duality. On the contrary, it breeds a large and large sense of conceit. ”
In Dostoevsky, as a thinker, he was a monologue, while as an artist he was a conversationalist. Unlike others, his introspective consciousness of his own duality is transformed into an artistic narrative that achieves an aesthetic ideology with a rescue function. Based on his summary of history, he found that the catastrophes of human history were caused by the monologue desire to suppress the voices of others, and that in Russia at that time, both Slavic and Westerners were also trying to make their voices the only legitimate position, and most importantly, both of which in the late 19th century derived violent ideas, the former developing the populist popular party, advocating the assassination of the rulers of the tsarist regime to achieve social change. The latter, on the other hand, developed the idea of the violent overthrow of the Tsarist regime based on the principles of the French Revolution.
Therefore, he finally chose to use his "polyphony" technique to warn the world that everyone should respect the multiplicity of personalities and cherish the diversity of the world, although this is not the most ideal form of human society, but it is the least bad form of human society. The development of world history validates the predictions of this prophetic artist with epilepsy, which is why we still have to revisit his great works today.
Written by | Wang Zhigeng
Edited | Miyako, Liu Yaguang
Proofreading | Xue Jingning