Восприятие романа «Бесы» Ф.М. Достоевского в русской дореволюционной радикальной критике

Abstract

The novel “Demons” by F.M. Dostoevsky has a very rich history in terms of its percep­tion in the history of Russian and Soviet culture. Contrary to a popular belief, it was never banned in Soviet times. It was published four times as part of the collected works of Dostoevsky (1927, 1957, 1974, 1982). This article examines how the novel “Demons” was received by the Russian radical criticism during the author’s lifetime. The analysis focuses on the critical articles by N.K. Mikhailovsky, one of the leaders of the narodniks, and P.N. Tkachev, a radical revolutionary, an associate of S.G. Nechaev. They are united by a sharply critical attitude to the novel, its almost complete rejection. Both Mikhailovsky and Tkachev categorically deny that such metaphysical and religious ideas and disputes take place in the revolutionary environment in which the cult of scientific knowledge, positivism and atheism reign, as it is presented in the novel. Mikhailovsky also reproaches Dostoevsky for having overlooked the main demon of Russia at that time – the demon of wealth and its threat for the country. In a dispute that followed be­tween Dostoevsky and Mikhailovsky, the topics of conservative socialism and whether socialism can be non-atheistic were raised. Unfortunately, this dispute did not develop. Tkachev’s criticism of this novel was even more harsh. According Tkachev’s main thesis, Dostoevsky exclusively limited himself to analyzing psychiatric anomalies of human character, painting the inner world of mentally ill people, and ascribing to his characters and to their reality only the inner states of his soul and only his own ideas. These works are only the first stage of the perception of “Demons” by the revolutionary-radical liter­ary tradition. However, for example, in the early Soviet years (1920s), some Marxist authors believed that in “Demons”, on the contrary, Dostoevsky in many respects truth­fully reflected the revolution and its elements (V.F. Pereverzev). And in the early Soviet historical science, at the same time, a trend was formed towards an apology and justifica­tion of Nechaev himself and of his actions.