Isai Fomich Bumshtein: The Representation of the Jew in Dostoevsky's Major Fiction

Abstract

Interest in Dostoevsky's attitude toward and artistic representation of Jews was renewed by the appearance of David Goldstein's Dostoyevsky and the Jews.' Goldstein's book is in many ways typical of the literature on the subject.2 Most of those who have written on Dostoevsky and the Jews have been Jews who admired Dostoevsky's work but who were disturbed by the image of the Jew they found in his fiction and late journalism. Gornfel'd, Shteinberg, and Morson responded, like Goldstein, by representing Dostoevsky as an anti-Semite. Others, not wanting to cut themselves off from the author they admired, have tried to exculpate Dostoevsky by stressing the ambiguity of his presentation of the Jew both in his fiction and journalism.3 The present study differs from the previous studies in that it examines the artistic function of the Jew in Dostoevsky's fiction. In order to determine this function, a good deal of attention will be devoted to the roles that critics have erroneously ascribed to the Jews