Donkey Squared, or Who First Called Dostoevsky a Genius

Abstract

The article examines the literary circumstances of F. M. Dostoevsky’s debut. They were reflected in the correspondence and memoirs, and in his contemporaries’ literary polemics. Dostoevsky was one of the few Russian writers who was awarded the title of genius by critics long before the publication of his first novel. Thus, the question of who had called him a genius emerges as relevant? For the first time this word was uttered by V. G. Belinsky, but neither he nor his associates declared Dostoevsky a genius in print. Rumors did it for them more effectively than the printed word. The rumor of “extraordinary talent” and “new genius” provoked the opponents of V. G. Belinsky: F. V. Bulgarin, O. I. Senkovsky, L. V. Brant, S. P. Shevyrev, etc. As they tried to convince readers of the mediocrity of the up-and-coming talent, they unwittingly made Dostoevsky a genius, presented his brilliance as a fact. Two years later, Belinsky abandoned his discovery of the genius of Dostoevsky, and called himself “a donkey squared”, yet the revision of the personal relationship did not affect the writer’s literary fate. The scandal and controversy over the novel The Poor Folk reinforced Dostoevsky’s fame.