Dostoevskij's Portrait of a “Pure, Ideal Christian”: Echoes of Nil Sorskij in the Elder Zosima

Abstract

Already since the publication of Fedor Dostoevskii's The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880), one of the characters that has been arousing much controversy is the starets or elder Zosima. In spite of the writer's intention to create in Zosima a “pure, ideal Christian”, the starets stirred up divided opinions in Russian ecclesiastical circles. In this paper, I aim to show that in his fictional elder Dostoevskii resuscitated a medieval tradition of contemplative monasticism and related spirituality, which was gradually pushed into the margins of the Russian church. More specifically, it will be revealed that in Zosima Dostoevskii recreated some echoes of the teachings of the 15th century monk Nil Sorskii, or Nil of Sora (1433–1508), who was the first to develop and write down a Russian theology of hesychasm.