The Relevance of Dostoevsky

Abstract

The year 2021 marks the 200th anniversary of Dostoevsky’s birth and the 140th anniversary of his immortality. Literary anniversaries became a part of the Russian culture relatively recently. The celebration is usually held in memory of those who had already found eternity. The attempt to celebrate the tercentenary of Shakespeare (1864) and the centenary of Pushkin’s birth in 1899 marked the beginning of a new cultural tradition. The dates of literary anniversaries in the 20th century reflect the struggle between these trends: birthdays are gradually replacing memorial days. Anniversaries tend to be an occasion not only for understanding a writer’s significance in the modern world, but also for analyzing the trends and prospects of studying their legacy. The article provides an overview of the past anniversaries of Dostoevsky in Russia and an analysis of several articles from the first issue of The Unknown Dostoevsky journal for 2021. The special feature of Dostoevsky’s bicentennial anniversary is the competition held by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) “Sources and methods in the study of the legacy of F. M. Dostoevsky in Russian and world culture” (2018–2021), which resulted in the support of 28 projects by leading Russian scientists. They will result in the publication of an unprecedented corpus of studies on Dostoevsky’s biography, philosophy, creativity, textual criticism and poetics. In post-Soviet Russia, the gap between Dostoevsky studies and mass consciousness, science and education is apparent. Moreover, technologies to counteract Dostoevsky’s influence on the modern Russian person are still operating. Reading and studying Dostoevsky remains the privilege of philologists, whose number in Russian universities has been drastically reduced with no prospects of the development of continuous humanitarian education. Nevertheless, despite influential opponents, Dostoevsky represents Russia, the Karamazovs are the most famous Russian surname, and today, just like 150 years ago, the prophet and apostle Dostoevsky conveys the word of truth and veracity to the world.