LESSON 7 The Young Dostoevsky and the Dawn of Realism
Study Notes
The Dawn of Realism and V. G. Belinsky
By the middle of the
1840s, encouraged by the later work of Pushkin and by the achievements of Gogol
and Lermontov, prose fiction had risen to the level of poetry as a medium of
literary expression in Russia. At the same time, as the history of Gogol
criticism shows, a spirit of social engagement was developing as the idea that
literature had important social, political, and ideological functions became
increasingly common. This idea was promoted from both the right and the left
sides of the political spectrum.
The champion of the left (or
progressive) critics was Vissarion Grigorievich Belinsky (1811-1848). Belinsky
called upon Russian literature to serve the causes of justice for the
disadvantaged and of progress toward a more open and democratic society. In
practice, this amounted to a call to criticism of the political and social
status quo and sympathy for those segments of the population (especially
the peasants, who were about eighty to ninety per cent of the population) who
formerly had not been thought fit for inclusion in literary works.
A
group of writers, centered mainly in Petersburg, answered this call. They are
called the writers of the "Natural School" and their "physiological sketches" of
the plain people of Petersburg were the first stirrings of the movement that
became known as Russian Realism. (It is such Realist writers as Turgenev,
Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky who give Russian literature its justified claim to
world-wide prominence in nineteenth-century literature. You may wish to consult
such works as Wellek's Concepts of Criticism for further information on
Realism or Victor Terras' Handbook of Russian Literature for information
on Realism in Russia.)
Belinsky felt that Gogol, before Gogol had became
corrupted by religious mysticism, had supplied brilliant examples of Realism,
the path that Russian literature should follow. In Dead Souls, according
to Belinsky, Gogol had exposed the corruption and folly of the provincial
land-holding class; in The Inspector General, the corruption of
officials; in "The Nose," the absurdities of the system of bureaucratic ranks.
Finally, in "The Overcoat," Gogol had provided the greatest instantiation
(following Pushkin's example in "The Bronze Horseman") of the theme of the
disadvantaged "little man" as the victim of an uncaring, rank and power-crazy
Russian official society. It was true that Gogol's portrait of reality tended to
be somewhat (or even greatly) exaggerated, but this was ascribed to the artistic
license permitted to a satirist.
Realism and Belinsky are both large
topics. Refer to the Bibliography for further
information.
The Early Life of Fyodor Dostoevsky
Another writer who
responded deeply, although not always so positively, to Gogol was Fyodor
Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881), whose first works appeared in the middle of
the 1840s. Dostoevsky was born in 1821 in Moscow, the son of a doctor in charge
of a charity hospital. After a secondary education in private high schools in
Moscow (1833-37), Dostoevsky enrolled in the Academy of Military Engineering in
St. Petersburg; he graduated in 1843. He served in the civil service for about a
year before leaving to devote himself to literary work.
Dostoevsky's
first novel, Poor Folk, was published to a strongly positive reception in
1846. The powerful critic Belinsky was especially enthusiastic. Dostoevsky's
subsequent works, however, were not so well received, and his career languished.
In 1847 he became a member of a clandestine political discussion group headed by
a certain Petrashevsky. The circle's discussions centered on the socialism of
the early nineteenth century, particularly on the ideas of F. M. C. Fourier and
Auguste Comte. Soviet critics make much of the young Dostoevsky's involvement in
this circle. Western critics, in general, see his interest in Socialism as only
one among many, with nothing of the fanatical about it. However, there is
general agreement that it was a dangerous interest, and that it cost Dostoevsky
dearly. In 1849 Dostoevsky and some of the other members of the Petrashevsky
circle were arrested and imprisoned. Dostoevsky was tried and convicted as one
of the group's leaders; he was sentenced to death. In December of 1849
Dostoevsky and a few other prisoners were already at the place of execution when
a commutation of sentence arrived at the last moment.
Instead of
execution, Dostoevsky's punishment was to be a four-year term in a forced-labor
camp in Siberia, followed by an indefinite term in exile as a private in the
Russian army. The hard life of the Siberian prison had a deleterious influence
on Dostoevsky's health. Epilepsy, which had been a relatively minor problem for
him, now became much more serious; moreover, Dostoevsky, the inveterate reader,
was allowed only one book while in prison, a copy of the Gospels which he read
over and again from cover to cover. After his release from prison in 1854,
Dostoevsky served as a private in the army and later as an officer. In 1857 he
married a widow, Marya Isaeva, whom he had met in exile.
In 1859, he was
allowed to retire from the army and to return to Russia. He immediately returned
to the literary scene with works he had written while in exile.
Dostoevsky's Early Works
This survey of Dostoevsky's life
and career as a writer will continue in the next lesson. Now, however, it is
time to consider his early work in greater detail. His first novel, Poor
Folk, is one of the texts you will study in this lesson. It was welcomed by
Belinsky and his circle because it was written in the style they favored: (1) it
was in prose; (2) it was in the spirit of Realism and described the contemporary
social situation; and (3) it exuded a sympathy for the common person and raised
members of the lower classes to the status of literary heroes. The main
characters of Poor Folk include a low-ranking official, a student, and a
seamstress. There is some similarity to Gogol's manner of detailed description,
but there is also an obvious polemic with Gogol's harsh, exaggerated, and
grotesque portrayal of his heroes. Dostoevsky is much more warmly sympathetic
and much less comic than his predecessor. Tragedy and pathos replace Gogol's
biting satire.
Poor Folk (1846) is an account of the love and
sacrifice of an aging civil servant for a young, impoverished girl. It is
written in the form of letters exchanged between the two. In both form and
content Dostoevsky goes back beyond Gogol to the sentiment of Karamzin, but he
retains Gogol's predilection for middle- and lower-class characters. It was
Dostoevsky's humanitarianism and sympathy that Belinsky most valued in the
novel.
The enthusiasm of Belinsky and others was soon dampened by the
appearance of Dostoevsky's second novel of 1846, The Double. This work
portrays a civil servant who suffers from the delusion that a demonic double is
persecuting him and ruining his career. This notion of the split in human
nature--of good and evil, positive and negative coexisting within the human
psyche--is present at the heart of Dostoevsky's mature psychological insight as
revealed in his great novels of the 1860s and 1870s. The critics of the time,
however, saw no general application to the human condition in this novel. They
felt that Dostoevsky had provided an interesting but, for "normal" people,
irrelevant account of the onset of insanity.
The rest of the works
Dostoevsky wrote before his imprisonment in 1849 reflect the characteristics
exemplified in Poor Folk and The Double. On the one hand there is
a tone of sympathy, a commitment to realism, and an interest in characters as
social types; on the other, there is dispassionate objectivity, fantasy, and
interest in characters as universal psychological types. This split continues to
be evident also in Dostoevsky's later novels.
Supplementary Background Reading
Required reading--Literary Text
You can get additional information on the career of the young Dostoevsky
from these books:
For Further Thought
1. What sort of people do Barbara and Makar (in Poor Folk) seem to
be at the beginning of the novel? Does your opinion of them and their motives
change by the end of the novel? Why?
2. What would you say is the relationship between Gogol's "The
Overcoat" (published 1842) and Dostoevsky's Poor Folk (published 1846)?
Have a question?
Students who are formally enrolled in Russian 3421 or
Russian 5421 at the University of Minnesota are invited to send questions
to:
gjahn@umn.edu