Description
The question of whether Dostoevsky was a European writer or a Russian writer of "the soil" with a post-exile right-wing agenda is still debated in Dostoevsky scholarship. The panel will approach the question of Dostoevsky's relationship with Europe by examining some of his post-exile publicist works in conjunction with the radical poetics of his novel(s) of the 1860s. While his concept of "pochva" ("soil") and "universal humanity" ("obshchechelovechestvo") have been taken as shibboleths of his "Slavophile" agenda and rejection of European bourgeois civilization, a close reading of his publicist works tells a completely different story. This is the story – as yet untold - of the contours of Hegel’s dialectic and philosophy of history accompanying Dostoevsky’s thought and procedée. The panel will connect his publicist style with the poetics of his novel The Idiot (1868-69). The outré form and exaggerated polemical styles offered as components of the narrative of this novel share features of his publicist polemics but are integrated into an artistic whole whose aesthetic message becomes a heuristic tool for diagnosing the current "moment" in Russian history. This is the moment when a still feudal Russia, lagging under the great reforms of Peter the Great, which turned the Russian elite into public servants, is struggling to come to terms with European modernity. At the same time, as an exquisite artist, Dostoevsky pre-empts the European aesthetics of Modernism with his Theatre of the Absurd-style pantomime of history. By 'reading' Dostoevsky's provocative novel through the 'European cultural gaze', members of the panel hope to show the relevance of the Russian writer today and his intimate connection with modern European civilization and its ongoing cultural issues (such as the struggle of ‘eternal' or 'traditional' values with global mass culture).| Period | 21 May 2021 |
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| Held at | University of Melbourne, Australia, Victoria |
| Degree of Recognition | International |