Dostoevsky and the "Jewish question". Part 1

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Fedor Mikhailovich did not like Jews: in his works you will not find good Jews among the heroes. They are always pitiful, mean, arrogant, cowardly, dishonest, greedy and dangerous.

The authors of the Jewish encyclopedia, in order not to hang the stigma of an anti-Semite on a world-famous Russian writer, make pitiful attempts to explain such a negative attitude towards Jews by the traditional enmity of a Christian and a Jew (the writer was a deeply religious person), as if justifying Dostoevsky: the "chosen by God" people are very much offended a similar attitude of the great Russian writer towards himself. But they are even more afraid that the Jewish theme in the writer's work will become widely known and will be actively discussed in society, that among philologists someone will be interested and engage in a comprehensive study of this topic and, perhaps, will find that the reason for the writer's dislike of Jews is little connected with his religiosity.

Dostoevsky highlighted the "Jewish question" in particular in detail in the "Diary of a Writer" - a collection of journalistic and artistic works, published in 1873-1881.

The Writer's Diary is interesting, first of all, in that it contains Dostoevsky's response to the events that took place in his time. A kind of document of the era.

1873 year. More than 10 years have passed since the day of the abolition of serfdom in Russia.

In his Diary of a Writer for 1873, Dostoevsky expresses concern about the widespread prevalence of alcoholism among Russian people:

Reflects on the future fate of the people:

Alas, the writer's nightmare came true almost a century and a half later … But then Dostoevsky writes:

This prophecy of the writer is also coming true: more and more people are waking up from an alcoholic sleep, realizing the destructive power of alcoholic poison and choosing a sober life.

In his Diary of a Writer for 1876, Dostoevsky speaks of the economic dominance of the Jews, of the centuries-old peculiarity of this people to bring ruin with them to foreign lands. Along the way, he continues to reflect on the future fate of the Russian people, freed from serfdom:

… (Diary of a writer. July and August, 1876)

… (Diary of a writer. July and August, 1876)

(State within a state (lat.). You can read more about this term in the "Diary of a Writer" for March 1877)

Of course, such attacks by Dostoevsky against the Jews could not go unnoticed: the writer received a lot of angry responses from the “chosen ones”, among which it is especially worth noting a certain Jewish journalist A. U. Kovner (who until the age of 19 did not know and speak Russian), who openly accused Dostoevsky of anti-Semitism. At the beginning of 1877, while in prison (serving a sentence for a failed fraud), he turned to the writer with a message, which was conveyed to Dostoevsky through a lawyer. Soon Kovner received a reply from the writer. But Dostoevsky decided not to confine himself to personal correspondence: he devoted an entire chapter to the "Jewish question" in the March 1877 issue of The Diary of a Writer, citing a letter from Kovner (Mr. NN) in the first part of this chapter:

(Diary of a writer. March, 1877 Chapter Two. "The Jewish Question")

Indeed, before the March 1877 issue of The Writer's Diary, Dostoevsky mentioned Jews in passing, but even these insignificant references aroused unprecedented rage among the Jewish people. Moreover, the “chosen ones”, reproaching the writer for anti-Semitism, are not at all ashamed of their own Russophobia, they speak of the Russian people with contempt and arrogance.

Marya Dunaeva