Th e “soil” by F.M. Dostoevsky and the “hillbilly” writers: a problematic fi eld

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of the continuity of “hillbilly” writers in relation to F.M. Dostoevsky in their belonging to the phenomenon of “soil science”. Such a statement is a common place in modern literary criticism and mass consciousness. This paper proposes a radical revision of this view. In the problem field, the author identifies two fundamental points. The first point is the well—established ideology of the continuity of history, the idea of time as a linear process that brings progress. The dominance of this ideology in the Soviet era generated a negative attitude towards patriarchy in combination with the national and religious — Orthodox — origin of Russian society. The author of the article contrasts the concept of linearity of time with its cyclicality, referring to both the agricultural cycle and the Orthodox calendar. The word “peasant” etymologically goes back to the word “Christian”. Christianity, a synonym for the word “peasantry”, is the second fundamental point of the problem field. The Russian countryside and the Russian peasantry, to whom the work of the “hillbillies” writers is dedicated, for internal political reasons were deprived of their organizing principle, their “soil” — Christianity. Therefore, the fate of the village in the works of ”hillbillies” does not show progress, but commemorations of the village, and the coined term “neo-soil” reveals a separation from the basic foundations of “soil science”.