Perception of the Novel The Devils by F.M. Dostoevsky in Soviet Culture and Literary Criticism in the 1920s

Abstract

The evolution of Soviet ideology and culture can be traced through the prism of perception of novel by F.M. Dostoevsky The Devils: each new stage of Soviet history corresponds to its own attitude to this most polemical and politicized novel by Dostoevsky. Similarly, the history of Soviet culture and ideology in the pre-war 1920s and 1930s – from relative pluralism (within Marxist limits and frameworks, of course) to the rigid and monologue Stalinist canon – can be traced by this criterion. In the 1920s, there was still a relatively free discussion of literary critics and historians regarding various aspects of this novel. In this sense, we can note the discussion between V.P. Polonsky and L.P. Grossman, statements about the novel by the first People’s Commissar of Education A.V. Lunacharsky and one of the founders of Soviet literary criticism V.F. Pere­verzev. The latter in the article Dostoevsky and the Revolution emphasizes the revolutionary component of Dostoevsky’s work, when he almost seems to be taken as an ally of the revolution. Moreover, this is done on a very controversial basis – on the material of his anti-revolutionary and anti-nihilistic novel The Devils. In this context, Pereverzev overestimates even the figure of Pyotr Verkhovensky, comprehending his image partly in a positive way. Also, Pere­verzev’s article Dostoevsky and the Revolution, among other things, is also inter­esting because it is one of the expressive examples of some general trend of the first post-revolutionary years, consisting in attempts to re-evaluate the im­age of S.G. Nechaev in a positive way as a true revolutionary and even the pre­decessor of the Bolsheviks.