Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time

1059 Pages·2009·6.78 MB·English

by  Joseph Frank

DOSTOEVSKY
DOSTOEVSKY
A Writer in His time
JOSEPH FRANK
edited by
Mary Petrusewicz
Copyright © 2010 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock,
Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
press.princeton.edu All Rights Reserved
Second printing, and first paperback printing, 2012
Paperback ISBN 978-0-691-15599-9
The Library of Congress has cataloged the cloth edition of this book as follows
Frank, Joseph, 1918– Dostoevsky : a writer in his time / Joseph Frank.
p. cm.
Abridged ed. of author’s work in 5 v.: Dostoevsky. c1976–2002.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-691-12819-1 (acid-free paper) 1. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1821–1881. 2. Novelists, Russian
—19th century—Biography. 3. Russia—Intellectual life—1801–1917. I. Title.
PG3328.F75 2010
891.73′3—dc22
[B] 2009001418
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Adobe
Garamond
Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Frontispiece: The bust of Dostoevsky on his grave
Parched with the spirit’s thirst, I crossed
An endless desert sunk in gloom,
And a six-winged seraph came
Where the tracks met and I stood lost.
Fingers light as dream he laid
Upon my lids; I opened wide
My eagle eyes, and gazed around.
He laid his fingers on my ears
And they were filled with roaring sound:
I heard the music of the spheres,
The flight of angels through the skies,
The beasts that crept beneath the sea,
The heady uprush of the vine;
And, like a lover kissing me,
He rooted out this tongue of mine
Fluent in lies and vanity;
He tore my fainting lips apart
And, with his right hand steeped in blood,
He armed me with a serpent’s dart;
With his bright sword he split my breast;
My heart leapt to him with a bound;
A glowing livid coal he pressed
Into the hollow of the wound.
There in the desert I lay dead.
And God called out to me and said:
“Rise, prophet, rise, and hear, and see,
And let my words be seen and heard
By all who turn aside from me.
And burn them with my fiery word.”
—A. S. Pushkin, “The Prophet”
trans. D. M. Thomas
CONTENTS
List of illustrations
Preface: Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time
Acknowledgments
Transliteration
Abbreviations
PART I
The Seeds of Revolt, 1821–1849
1 Prelude
2 The Family
3 The Religious and Cultural Background
4 The Academy of Military Engineers
5 The Two Romanticisms
6 The Gogol Period
7 Poor Folk
8 Dostoevsky and the Pléiade
9 Belinsky and Dostoevsky: I
10 Feuilletons and Experiments
11 Belinsky and Dostoevsky: II
12 The Beketov and Petrashevsky Circles
13 Dostoevsky and Speshnev
PART II
The Years of Ordeal, 1850–1859
14 The Peter-and-Paul Fortress
15 Katorga
16 “Monsters in Their Misery”
17 Private Dostoevsky
18 A Russian Heart
19 The Siberian Novellas
20 Homecoming
PART III
The Stir of Liberation, 1860–1865
21 Into the Fray
22 An Aesthetics of Transcendence
23 The Insulted and Injured
24 The Era of Proclamations
25 Portrait of a Nihilist
26 Time: The Final Months
27 Winter Notes on Summer Impressions
28 An Emancipated Woman, A Tormented Lover
29 The Prison of Utopia
30 Notes from Underground
31 The End of Epoch
PART IV
The Miraculous Years, 1865–1871
32 Khlestakov in Wiesbaden
33 From Novella to Novel
34 Crime and Punishment
35 “A Little Diamond”
36 The Gambler
37 Escape and Exile
38 In Search of a Novel
39 An Inconsolable Father
40 The Idiot
41 The Pamphlet and the Poem
42 Fathers, Sons, and Stavrogin
43 Exile’s Return
44 History and Myth in Demons
45 The Book of the Impostors
PART V
The Mantle of the Prophet, 1871–1881
46 The Citizen
47 Narodnichestvo: Russian Populism
48 Bad Ems
49 A Raw Youth
50 A Public Figure
51 The Diary of a Writer, 1876–1877
52 A New Novel
53 The Great Debate
54 Rebellion and the Grand Inquisitor
55 Terror and Martial Law
56 The Pushkin Festival
57 Controversies and Conclusions
58 The Brothers Karamazov: Books 1–4
59 The Brothers Karamazov: Books 5–6
60 The Brothers Karamazov: Books 7–12
61 Death and Transfiguration
Editor’s Note
Index
ILLUSTRATIONS
Unless otherwise noted, all illustrations are from Feodor Mikhailovich
Dostoevsky v portretakh, illyustratsiyakh, dokumentakh, ed. V. S. Nechaeva
(Moscow, 1972).
Frontispiece The bust of Dostoevsky on his grave
1. Dr. M. A. Dostoevsky
2. Mme M. F. Dostoevsky
3. A government courier on a mission
4. The Academy of Military Engineers
5. F. M. Dostoevsky in 1847
6. Feodor’s older brother, M. M. Dostoevsky, in 1847
7. V. G. Belinsky in 1843
8. M. V. Butashevich-Petrashevsky in 1840
9. N. A. Speshnev
10. The Peter-and-Paul Fortress
11. The mock execution of the Petrashevtsy
12. Marya Dimitrievna Isaeva
13. Dostoevsky in uniform, 1858
14. Nikolay Strakhov in the 1850s
15. Apollon Grigoryev in the 1850s
16. Mikhail Dostoevsky’s home and the offices of Time
17. F. M. Dostoevsky, 1861
18. I. S. Turgenev, ca. 1865. From Turgenev, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 9
(Moscow–Leningrad, 1965)
19. Main hall of the Crystal Palace. From Scientific American, March 19, 1851.
20. Apollinaria Suslova. From Dominique Arban et al., Dostoïevski (Paris,
1971)