N.  A.  BERDYAEV  (BERDIAEV) 

 

THE  REVELATION  ABOUT  MAN 

IN  THE  CREATIVITY 
OF  DOSTOEVSKY

(1918 - #294)

                                                                  Thou didst take everything, that is

unusual, 
                                                                  conjectural and indefinite, Thou didst
take 
                                                                  everything that was beyond the powers
of 
                                                                  people, and there didst behave as though 
                                                                  loving them not at all. 
                                                                   Legend of the Grand Inquisitor

        Many a truth has already been written about Dostoevsky and much has been
said about him, which has come to be almost banal. I have not in view the old
Russian criticism, of which the article by N. K. Mihailovsky, "The Cruel Talent"
("Zhestokii talant"), might serve as a typical example. For the journalistic criticism
of this type, Dostoevsky was completely unacceptable, and it had no clue to the
revealing of the mysteries of his creativity. But people also of another spiritual
dimension wrote about Dostoevsky, they were more akin to him, of another
generation, those peering into the spiritual distances: Vl. Solov'ev, Rozanov,
Merezhkovsky, Volynsky, L. Shestov, Bulgakov, Volzhsky, Vyach. Ivanov. All
these writers each in his own way attempted to get to the bottom of Dostoevsky
and to disclose the profundity in him. In his creativity they beheld the utmost
revelations, the struggle of Christ and the Anti-Christ, of the Divine and the
demonic principles, of the disclosing of the mystical nature of the Russian people,
of the uniqueness of Russian Orthodoxy and Russian humility. Thinkers of the
religious tendency saw the essential content of all the creativity of Dostoevsky in
the singular revelations about Christ, about immortality and about the God-bearing
Russian people and they bestowed his ideology a special significance. For others
still, Dostoevsky was first of all a psychologist, disclosing the underground
psychology. Dostoevsky had all of this in him. He was extraordinarily gifted, and
from him there go many directions and each could be used by him for its own ends.
The enigma of Dostoevsky can be approached from various sides. And I want to
approach this enigma from a side, which has been insufficiently approached. I do
not think, that the religious explanation of Dostoevsky, which has become
dominant for us, has detected the most primary thing in him, that central theme of
his, with which is connected his pathos. It is impossible within the limited expanse
of an article to encompass the whole of Dostoevsky, but it is possible to take note
of one of his themes, which suggests itself to me as central and from which he
explains everything.

        Dostoevsky had one thing very inherent to him, an unprecedented regard for
man and for his destiny -- here is where it is necessary to see his pathos, here is
with what is connected the uniqueness of his creative type. For Dostoevsky there is
nothing and naught else than man, everything is revealed only in him, everything is
subordinated only to him. N. Strakhov, who was close to him, noted: "All his
attention was directed upon people, and he grasped at only their nature and
character. He was interested by people, people exclusively, with their state of soul,
with the manner of their lives, their feelings and thoughts". In the journey abroad
"Dostoevsky was especially occupied neither by nature, nor by historical
memorials, nor works of art". And this is attested to by all the creativity of
Dostoevsky. No one ever had such an exclusive preoccupation with the theme of
man. And no one had such a genius for revealing the mystery of human nature.
Dostoevsky was, first of all, a great anthropologist, an investigator of human
nature, its depth and its mystery. All his creativity -- is of anthropological
experiences and experiments. Dostoevsky -- is not a realist as an artist, he is an
experimentator, a creator of an experimential metaphysics of human nature. All the
artistry of Dostoevsky is but a method of anthropological searchings and
disclosings. He is not only beneathe Tolstoy as an artist, but also in the strict sense
of this word, he cannot be termed an artist. That, which Dostoevsky writes, -- is not
a novel and it is not tragedy, it assumes no set form of artistic creativity. And this
is ultimately some sort of a great artistry, wholly captivating, pulling one into its
peculiar world, working magically. But it is impossible to approach this artistry
with the usual criteria and demands. Nothing is easier, than to point out the artistic
defects in the novels of Dostoevsky. In them there is no artistic catharsis, they are
tormented, they always transgress the limits of art. The plots in the novels of
Dostoevsky are improbable, the persons unreal, the collisions of all the influential
persons at one place and at the same time -- with always the impossible tension,
strained beyond the purposes of the anthropological experiment, where all the
heroes speak with one voice, at times very vulgar, and with several places bringing
to mind the crime novels of less than lofty quality. And it is only through
misunderstanding of these novel-tragedies that they can seem realistic. In these
novels there is nothing epic in scope, there is no depiction of manner of life, there
is no objective depiction of human and natural life. The novels of Tolstoy, perhaps
the most perfect of all those ever written, give the sensation, as though cosmic life
has disclosed them, as though the very soul of the world wrote them. In
Dostoevsky it is impossible to find such, as snatched from life, real people of flesh
and blood. All the heroes of Dostoevsky -- are actually himself, the different sides
of his particular spirit. The complexity of plot in his novels is a revealing of man in
various aspects, from various sides. He discloses and depicts eternal elements of
the human spirit. In the depth of human nature he reveals God and the devil and
endless worlds, but always he reveals through man and from out of some sort of
frenzied interest in man. In Dostoevsky there is no nature, there is no cosmic life,
there are no things nor objects, everything is enveloped by man and the endless
human world, everything is enclosed within man. Within mankind however there
are at play frenzied, ecstatic, swirling elements. Dostoevsky exerts an allure, he
pulls everything together into a sort of fiery atmosphere. And all else becomes
insipid after one sojourns in the realm of Dostoevsky, he kills the taste for the
reading of other writers. The artistry of Dostoevsky is altogether of a peculiar sort.
He produced his anthropological investigations through artistry, whilst drawing on
the mysterious depths of human nature. Within these depths always there is
involved a frenzied and ecstatic whirlwind. And this whirlwind is a method of
anthropological revealings. Everything written by Dostoevsky is of a whirlwind-
like anthropology, everything there is revealed in an ecstatic-fiery atmosphere.
Dostoevsky reveals a new mystical science of man. Access to this science is
possible only for those, which have been drawn into the whirlwind. This is the path
of initiation into the mystery-knowledge of Dostoevsky. In this science and its
methods nothing is static, everything -- is dynamic, everything is in motion, there
is nothing congealed or petrified or at a standstill, this -- is a torrent of red-hot lava.
Everything is passionate, everything frenzied in the anthropology of Dostoevsky,
everything goes beyond the boundaries and limits. To Dostoevsky was given to
know man in his passionate, impetuous, frenzied stirrings. There is nothing of a
noble aspect to the human persons revealed by Dostoevsky, none of that Tolstoyan
nobleness, always detected at some static moment.

II

          In the novels of Dostoevsky there is nothing, save for mankind and human
relationships. This has to be apparent for anyone, absorbed in the reading of these
spirit-gripping anthropologic tracts. All the heroes of Dostoevsky only but visit
with one another, they converse with one another, and they are drawn into the
miring abyss of tragic human fates. The sole serious vital deed of the people of
Dostoevsky is their mutual-relations, their passioned attraction and repulsion. It is
impossible to find any other sort of "deed", any other vital array in this immense
and endlessly manifold human realm. Always there is depicted some sort of human
centre, some sort of central human passion, and everything rotates, revolves around
this human axis. There is depicted a whirlwind of passionate human relations, and
into this whirlwind is drawn everything, everything somehow turns round in a
frenzy. The whirlwind of impassioned, fiery human nature pulls down this nature
into the mysterious, enigmatic, unfathomable depths. It is there that Dostoevsky
discloses the human infinity, the bottomlessness of human nature. But even in the
very depths, and in the light of day, and in the abyss man remains, his image and
countenance do not disappear. We take delight from the novels of Dostoevsky. In
each of them is revealed an impassioned entry into inexplicable depths, an human
realm, in which everything exhausts itself. Within mankind is revealed infinitude
and fathomlessness, and there is nothing except man, there is nothing interesting
besides man.

           Here for example is the "Adolescent" ("Podrostok"), one of the most genius-
endowed and as yet insufficiently esteemed works of Dostoevsky. Everything
revolves around the image of Versilov, everything is saturated by an impassioned
relationship to him, by the human attraction and repulsion of him. The story
concerns an adolescent, the illegitimate son of Versilov. No one is occupied by any
sort of work, no one has an otherwise organic place in the established order of life,
everything is off the beaten track, off the paths of orderly life, everything is in an
hysteria and frenzy. Yet all the same there is the sense that everyone is at some
immense deed, infinitely serious, and that they will resolve very important tasks.
What indeed is this deed, what is this task? About it fusses the adolescent from
morning til evening, whither it is that he hastens, and why has he not a moment of
respite nor rest? In the usual sense of the word the adolescent -- is a complete idler,
as is also his father Versilov, as also are almost all the active personages in the
novels of Dostoevsky. But all the same, Dostoevsky gives the impression that an
important, serious, Divine deed is transpiring. Man for Dostoevsky is higher than
any deed, he is also himself the deed. There is posited the living enigma about
Versilov, about man, about his destiny, about the Divine image within him. The
resolution of these riddles is a great deed, the greatest of deeds. The adolescent
wants to discover the mystery of Versilov. This mystery is hidden within the
depths of man. All sense the significance of Versilov, all are struck by the
contradictions of his nature, for all there is thrown into their gaze something deeply
irrational in his character and in his life. The enigma of the complicated,
contradictory, irrational character of Versilov with his strange fate, the riddle of an
extraordinary man is for him a riddle about man in general. The whole complicated
plot, the complex intrigue of the novel is but a means for the revealing of the man
Versilov, for the revealing of complex human nature, about the antinomies of its
passions. The mystery of the nature of man is disclosed most of all in the relations
of men and women. And about love Dostoevsky happened to reveal something
unprecedented in Russian and world literature, he had a fiery concept of love. The
love of Versilov and Katerina Nikolaevna pulls in such an element of fiery passion,
as nowhere and never existed. This fiery passion was concealed beneathe an
outward appearance of calm. At times it seems, that Versilov -- is the Vulcan of
yore. But this impresses upon us also all the more sharply the image of Versilov's
love. Dostoevsky shows the contradiction, the polarity and the antinomy in the
very nature of this fiery passion. Such a verymost intense love is unrealisable upon
the earth, it is hopeless, desperately tragic, it begets death and destruction.
Dostoevsky does not like to take man in the set living order of the world. He
always shows us man in the desperately hopeless and tragic, in the contradictions,
leading to the very depths. Such is the utmost type of man, manifest by
Dostoevsky.

          In the "Idiot", perhaps the most artistically perfect of Dostoevsky's works,
everything likewise exhausts itself in the world of fiery human relationships.
Prince Myshkin journeys to Peterburg and at once he is caught up in the red-hot
ecstatic atmosphere of people's relations, which takes hold of him completely and
into which he brings his own tranquil ecstasy, evoking violent whirlwinds. The
image of Myshkin -- is a genuine revealing of a Christian Dionysianism. Myshkin
does nothing, just as with all the heroes of Dostoevsky, he is not bothered with
having to order his life. The immense and serious living task, which was set before
him when he fell into the whirlwind of human relationships, -- this is something
pertaining to the destiny of every man, and first of all to two women -- Nasta'ya
Philippovna and Aglaya. In "The Adolescent" everything is concerned with but one
man -- with Versilov. In the "Idiot" one man -- Myshkin -- is concerned with
everything. Both there and here transpires an exclusive absorption in the solving of
human destinies. The antinomic duality of the nature of human love reveals itself
in the "Idiot" at its utmost depth. Myshkin loves with a different love both
Nastas'ya Philippovna and Aglaya, and this love cannot bring forth any sort of
results. There is immediately a sense, that the love for Nastas'ya Philippovna is
endlessly tragic and will lead to ruin. And Dostoevsky reveals here the nature of
human love and its fate in this world. This -- is not a piecemeal and ordinary
narration, but rather anthropologic knowledge, revealed through ecstatic immersion
of man in the fiery red-hot atmosphere, shown in depth. A passionate, fiery
connection exists between Myshkin and Rogozhin. Dostoevsky perceived, that
love for a single woman not only separates people, but also it unites them, binds
them. Otherwise, in other tones, this bond, this connection is depicted in the
"Eternal Husband" ("Vechnyi muzh"), one of the genius-endowed works of
Dostoevsky. In the "Idiot" it is very clearly apparent, that Dostoevsky was entirely
interested not by the objective order of life, the natural and the social, he was not
interested in the epic event, the stasis of living forms, of attaining and evaluating
the ordering of life, be it familial, social, cultural. What interested him only were
the genius-endowed experiments over human nature. Everything remains with him
in the depths, not on this plane, where the apparent life is manifest, but in a
completely different dimension.

         In the "Possessed" (or the "Devils", "Besy") everything is concentrated

around Stavrogin, as in "The Adolescent" it was around Versilov. To define the
relationship to Stavrogin, to resolve his character and his fate is a singularly vital
matter, around which is concentrated the action. Everything is drawn towards him,
everything is merely his fate, his emanation, effected from his demonic-possession.
The destiny of man, issuing forth by his power into the infinitude of his yearnings,
-- here is what comprises the theme of the "Possessed". The person, from whom
the narrative proceeds, is totally absorbed by the world of human passions and the
human demonic-possession, encircling round about Stavrogin. And in the
"Possessed" there is nothing of value attained, no sort of building up, nothing of
any sort organic realised in life. It is all indeed this riddle about man and the
passionate thirst to resolve it. We are dragged into the fiery torrent, and in this
torrent melt down and burn off all the congealed trappings, all the stable forms, all
the chilled-down and established modalities of existence, impeding the revelation
about man, about his depth, about his goings forth into the very depths of the
contradictions. The depths of man for Dostoevsky are always shown as
unexpressed, unmanifest, unrealised and unrealisable til the end. The revealing of
the depths of man always leads to catastrophe, beyond the bounds and limits of the
felicitous life of this world.

        In the novel, the "Insulted and the Humiliated" ("Prestuplenii i nakazanii")
there is nothing, except the revealing of the inner life of man, his experimenting
over his unique nature and human nature in general, besides the discovering of all
the possibilities and impossibilities, situated within man. But the anthropological
discovery in the "Insulted and the Humiliated" leads otherwise, than in the other
novels, in it there is no such strained passionateness of human relations, there is no
such revealing of a single human person through the human manifold. Of all the
works of Dostoevsky, the "Insulted and the Humiliated" most of all brings to mind
the experience of a new science of man.

        The "Brothers Karamazov" -- is the richest in content, abundant with thoughts
of genius, though also not very perfective a work of Dostoevsky. Here again the
problem about man is put into an impassioned and strained atmosphere of human
multiplicity. Alyosha, -- least successful of the depictions of Dostoevsky, -- sees
his singular vital task in having an active relationship with his brothers Ivan and
Dmitrii, with the women connected with them -- Grushen'ka and Katerina
Ivanovna, and to the children. But he is not bothered with building a life. Drawn
into the whirlwind of human passions, he goes now to one, now to another, to
attempt to resolve the human enigma. Most of all does the enigma of his brother
Ivan intrigue him. Ivan -- is a worldly enigma, the problem of man in general. And
everything, which in Dostoevsky is connected with Ivan Karamazov, is a profound
metaphysics of man. The participation of Ivan Karamazov in the murder, done by
Smerdyakov, -- this his other half, the stinging conscience of Ivan, the
conversation with the devil, -- all this is anthropologic experiment, the discovery of
the possibilities and impossibilities of human nature, its but with difficulty grasped,
most subtle experiencings of an inward murder. Through a favourite device of
Dostoevsky, Mitya is set betwixt two women, and the love of Mitya leads to
ruination. Nothing that is possible is realised in the external order of life,
everything possible transpires in the infinite, inexplicable depths. Dostoevsky thus
also did not show the realising of a felicitous life by Alyosha, since indeed it was
not very needful for the anthropological investigations. Positive felicity is given in
the form of the discourse of Starets Zosima, and it is no accident that Dostoevsky
has him die off near the very beginning of the novel. His further continued
existence would merely have made maddening the revealing of all the
contradictions and polarities of human nature. All the primary novels of
Dostoevsky bespeak this, that what interests him only is man and human relations,
that he but follows out human nature, and by his artistic-experimental method, so
very revealing with him, he reveals all the contradictions of human nature,
plunging it into a fiery and ecstatic atmosphere.

III

         Dostoevsky -- is Dionysian and an ecstatic. In him there is nothing

Apollonian, there is nothing moderative or introduced within the limits of form. He
is immoderate in everything, he is always in a frenzy, in his creativity all the
boundaries are burst asunder. And a greatest trait in Dostoevsky mustneeds be seen
in this, that in the Dionysian ecstasy and frenzy --  with him man does not vanish,
in the very depths of the ecstatic experience the image of man is preserved, the
human countenance is not rent asunder, the principle of human individuality
remains as from the very day of its genesis. Man -- is not at the periphery of being,
as he is for many a mystic and metaphysician, he is not a transitory appearance, but
rather of the very depths of being, nigh off into the bosom of Divine life. In the
ancient Dionysian ecstasy the principle of human individuality was snatched away
and there transpired an absorption into an impersonal unity. Ecstasy was the way
of extirpating all multiplicity within the unity. The Dionysian element was outside
the human, and was impersonal. But not so for Dostoevsky. He is profoundly
distinct from all those mystics for whom in ecstasy the countenance of man
vanishes and everything dies away within the Divine unity. In the ecstasies and in
the frenzies Dostoevsky to the end remains a Christian, since to the end for him
man remains, his countenance remains. He is deeply antithetical to the German
Idealist monism, which always purports for itself the Monophysite heresy, the
denial of the autonomy of the human nature with its being swallowed up always by
the Divine nature. Dostoevsky is altogether not a monist, he to the very end
acknowledges a manifold of persons, the plurality and complexity within being.
Characteristic for him is a sort of frenzied sense of the human person and its
eternal, indestructible destiny. The human person for him never dies off within the
Divine, into the Divine oneness. He perceives always the process with God
concerning the destiny of the human person, and he wants to surrender nothing of
this destiny. He ecstatically senses that man also survives, and not only God. He
burns eternally with the thirst for human immortality. And he would sooner
consent to the horrid nightmare of Svidrigailov about eternal life in the lower room
with the spiders, than to the disappearance of man into an impersonal monism.
Better hell for the human person, than unpersonal and unhuman bliss. The
dialectics about the tears of a child, on account of which the world is repudiated,
although put also into the mouth of the atheist Ivan Karamazov, -- all this
appertains to the creative imagination of Dostoevsky himself. He appears always as
the advocate of man, a proponent for his destiny.
         How profound the distinction between Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. In Tolstoy
the human countenance sinks down into the organic elements. Multiplicity for him
was merely modality, merely in the appearances of the organic array of life. As an
artist and a thinker, Tolstoy -- was a monist. The facelessness, the roundness of
Platon Karataev is for him the highest attainment. Man for him does not go into the
very depths, he -- is always a phenomenon on the periphery of being. The question
of man does not torture Tolstoy, only the question of God tortures him. For
Dostoevsky however the question of God is connected with the question of man.
Tolstoy is more the theologian, than is Dostoevsky. The matter of Raskol'nikov
and the matter of Ivan Karamazov is a tormentive question about man, about the
limits, set for man. And even when Myshkin sinks into a quiet mindlessness, it
remains accurate, that the human countenance does not disappear into Divine
ecstasy. Dostoevsky reveals to us the ecstasy of man, his whirlwind stirrings, but
never and nowhere does man for him plunge away into cosmic infinitude, as for
example, in the creativity of A. Bely. Ecstasy always is but a stirring in the depths
of man. The exclusive interest of Dostoevsky towards transgressions was purely an
anthropological interest. This -- was an interest in the limits and boundaries of
human nature. But even in transgression, which for Dostoevsky always is frenzy,
man does not perish and he does not disappear, but rather is affirmed and reborn.

        It is necessary still to stress one peculiarity of Dostoevsky. He is

extraordinarily, diabolically skillful, his thoughts unusually acute, his dialectic
terribly powerful. Dostoevsky -- is a great thinker within his artistic creativity, and
foremost of all he is an artist of thought. From the greatest artists in the world as
regards strength of mind, there might in part compare together with him only
Shakespeare, also a great investigator of human nature. The works of Shakespeare
are fully pervaded by an acuity of mind, -- of the Renaissance mind. The abyss of
the mind, of a different but still more immense and pervasive aspect, is revealed by
Dostoevsky. Merely but from the "Notes from the Underground" ("Zapiski iz
podpol'ya") and the "Legend of the Grand Inquisitor" is presented an enormous
mental wealth. He was even too skillful for an artist, his mind impeded the
attainment of artistic catharsis. And here it is necessary to note, that the
Dionysianism and ecstacism of Dostoevsky did not quench his mind and thought,
as often this occurs, it did not submerge the acuity of mind and thought into the
mindlessness of a Divine intoxication. Dostoevsky the mystic, the enemy and
unmasker of rationalism and intellectualism, adored thought, he was enamoured
with dialectic. Dostoevsky presents an extraordinary manifestation of orgianism, of
an ecstaticism of thought itself, he was intoxicated by the power of his mind. His
thought is always whirlwind-like, orgiastically frenzied, but with this it does not
diminish in strength and acuity. With the example of his creativity Dostoevsky
showed, that the surmounting of rationalism and the disclosing of the irrationality
of life is not invariably a diminution of mind, that the acuity of mind itself
facilitates the revealing of irrationality. This original peculiarity of Dostoevsky is
connected with the theme, that for him to the very end man remains, he is never
dissolved into an impersonal oneness. Therefore he acutely knows the antithetical.
In monism of the German type there is depth, but not an acuity, a pervasiveness of
thought, yielding knowledge of antitheses, and everything instead sinks into
oneness. Goethe was vastly endowed with genius, but it does not obtain to say for
him, that he was vastly skilled, in his mind there was not the acuity, there was not
the pervasive penetration into the antithetical. Dostoevsky always thought
antithetically and by this he sharpened his thought. Monophysitism dulls the acuity
of thought. Dostoevsky indeed always saw in the depths not only God, but man
also, not only unity, but multiplicity also, not only the one, but also the antithetical
to it. The acuity of his thoughts is in the polarisation of the thoughts. Dostoevsky --
is a great, a greatest thinker foremost in his artistic creativity, in his novels. In the
journalistic articles, however, the strength and acuity of his thought was weakened
and dulled. Within his Slavophil agrarian and Orthodox ideology is missing that
trait of the antithetical and the polarity, disclosed within his mind acute with
genius. He was mediocre as a journalist, and when he began to preach, his level of
thought lowered; his ideas simplified. Even his famed speech about Pushkin tended
quite to exaggeration. The thoughts in this speech and the thoughts in the "Diary of
a Writer" ("Dnevnik pisatelya") are insipid and bland in comparison with the
thoughts of Ivan Karamazov, of Versilov or Kirillov, in comparison with the
thoughts of the "Legend of the Grand Inquisitor" or the "Notes from the
Underground".

         Many a time already it has been noted, that Dostoevsky, as an artist, was
tormented, that in him there was nothing of the artistic catharsic-cleansing and
egress. This egress has been sought for in the positive ideas and setting of belief
partly in the "Brothers Karamazov", and partly in the "Diary of a Writer". This
reflects a false attitude towards Dostoevsky. He is in anguish, but never does he
remain in darkness, in despair. With him there is always an ecstatic egress. He
pulls with his whirlwind beyond all the boundaries, he rends the limits of every
darkness. That ecstasy, which is experienced during the reading of Dostoevsky, is
an egress already by itself. This egress mustneeds be searched out not in the
doctrines and ideological constructs of Dostoevsky the preacher and the publicist,
not in the "Diary of a Writer", but in his tragedy novels, in that artistic gnosis,
which is revealed in them. It would be a mistake to set forth a platform upon the
not entirely successful image of Alyosha as a bright point of egress from the
darkness of Ivan and Dmitrii and the earlier accumulated darkness of Raskol'nikov,
Stavrogin, Versilov. This would be a doctrinal attitude to the creativity of
Dostoevsky. The egress is without preaching and without moralising, in a great
shining forth of ecstatic knowledge, in the very immersion into the fiery human
element. Dostoevsky is poor in theology, he is rich however in his anthropological
investigations. With Dostoevsky, only the question about man is profoundly put.
Questions about society and the state were put by him, however, with not much
originality. His preaching of theocracy is almost banal. But in him it is necessary to
seek out his strength. The highest of all and first of all for Dostoevsky -- is the
human soul, it stands greater than all the kingdoms and all the worlds, than all
world history, than all the reknown progress. In the process transpiring within
Mitya Karamazov, Dostoevsky revealed the incommensurability of the cold,
objective, unhuman civil realm in contrast to that of the soul of man, the incapacity
of the civil realm to penetrate to the righteous truth of the soul. But he poorly
perceived the nature of the civil realm. Dostoevsky is regarded as a criminalist in
terms of his themes and interests. He dealt most of all with the revealing of the
psychology of transgression. But this is merely the method, by which he carries out
his investigation into the irrationality of human nature and its incompatibility with
any sort of ordered life, -- whether it be with any sort of rational civil realm, or
with any sort of the tasks of history or of progress. Dostoevsky had a fiery
religious nature and was a most Christian of writers. But he was a Christian first of
all and most of all in his artistic revealings about man, and not in any sort of
preachings or doctrines.

IV

         Dostoevsky wrought a great anthropological revelation, and in this mustneeds

first of all be seen his artistic, philosophic and religious significance. But what was
this revelation? All sorts of artists have depicted man, and many among them were
psychologists. How subtle a psychologist, for example, was Stendhal. And
Shakespeare revealed a diverse and rich human world. In the creativity of
Shakespeare was revealed a dazzling interplay of human power, set free during the
era of the Renaissance. But the revealing by Dostoevsky is incomparable with
anyone or anything. Both in his raising of the theme concerning man, and in the
means of its resolution for him, it is entirely unique and particular. He was
interested by the eternal essence of the human nature, its hidden depths, which no
one had ever gleaned. And it was not the stasis of these depths that interested him,
but rather their dynamics, their stirrings that as it were in very eternity had
transpired. This movement is totally inward, not subject to external evolution and
history. Dostoevsky reveals not a phenomenal, but rather ontological dynamics. In
the penultimate depth of man, in the abyss of being, -- there is not stillness, but
rather movement. All the visual interplay of human passions and the appearances
manifest by the human psyche is but at the periphery of being. Dostoevsky
revealed the tragic contradiction and the tragic stirrings within the penultimate
plane of the being of man, where it is immersed already within the ineffable Divine
being, yet not vanishing into it. Too well known are the words of Mitya
Karamazov: "Beauty -- this is a frightful and terrible thing! Frightful, since that it
is indefinable, and it is impossible to define it, since God hath made it entirely an
enigma. Here the shores coincide, here all the contradictions live together…
Beauty! Moreover I cannot bear it, that another, even more upright in heart a man
and with a mind lofty, can begin with the ideal of the Madonna, and end up with
the ideal of Sodom. More fearful still, is that the one with the ideal of the Sodomic
in soul does not deny also the ideal of the Madonna, he is ardent in his heart, and in
truth, in truth he is as ardent as in his youthful, innocent years. No, man is vast, too
vast, I should judge". All the heroes of Dostoevsky -- are but he himself, various of
the sides of his endlessly rich and endlessly complex spirit, and he always puts into
the mouths of his heroes his own genius-endowed thoughts. And here it is
indicated, that beauty, -- the highest form of ontologic perfection, about which in
another place it is said, that it would save the world, -- here it presented itself to
Dostoevsky as contradictory, twofold, frightful, terrible. He does not contemplate
the Divinely tranquil beauty, its Platonic idea, he sees right down to its very end, to
the utmost depths of its fiery, whirlwind stirrings, its polarisation. Beauty reveals
itself to him only through man, through the vast, the too vast, mysterious,
contradictory, eternal stirrings of the nature of man. He does not contemplate
beauty in the cosmos, in the Divine world-order. Hence -- the eternal restlessness.
"Beauty is not only frightening, it is also a mysterious thing. It is here that the devil
and God do contend, and the field of battle -- is the heart of people". The
distinction between "godly" and "diabolic" does not coincide for Dostoevsky with
the usual distinction between "good" and "evil". In this -- is a mystery of the
anthropology of Dostoevsky. The distinction between good and evil is peripheral.
The indeed fiery polarisation goes to the very depths of being, and it is present to
the very utmost -- in beauty. If Dostoevsky had revealed his teaching about God,
he would then have been obliged to acknowledge a duality in the Divine nature
itself, a furied and dark principle in the very depth of the Divine nature. He gives
intimations of this truth with his genius-endowed anthropology. Dostoevsky was
an anti-Platonist.

        And Stavrogin speaks about the various attractions of the two antithetical
poles, the Madonna ideal and the Sodomic ideal. This is not a simple struggle of
good with evil in the human heart. In this it is also a matter, that for Dostoevsky
the human heart at its most primary basis -- is polarised, and this polarisation
begets a fiery stirring, which does not permit of peace. Peace, having unity within
the human heart, within the human soul, is seen not by those, which like
Dostoevsky glance into the very depths, but rather by those, which fear to glance
into the abyss and remain hence at the surface. With Dostoevsky to the very depths
there was an antinomic attitude towards evil. He wants always to acknowledge the
mystery of evil, and in this he was a gnostic, he did not push out evil into the
sphere of the unknowable, nor did he discard it altogether. Evil was for him evil,
evil blazed for him in the hellish fire, and he passionately strove for the victory
over evil. But he wanted to do something with evil, to transform it into an
handsome metal, onto an higher Divine being and by this to save evil, i.e. to
genuinely conquer it, and not relegate it to the outer darkness. This -- is a
profoundly mystical motif in Dostoevsky, a revelation of his great heart, of his
fiery love for man and for Christ. The falling away, the separation, the apostacy
never appeared for Dostoevsky simply as sin, this was for him likewise -- a
pathway. He does not read morally over the living tragedies of Raskol'nikov,
Stavrogin, Kirillov, Versilov, Dmitrii and Ivan Karamazov, he does not set
opposite them any elementary catechism truths. Evil mustneeds be overcome and
conquered, but it provides also an enriching experience, in division much is
revealed, it enriches and provides knowledge. Evil likewise is a path also of man.
And everyone, who has gone through Dostoevsky and experienced him, has
recognised the mystery of dichotomy, has received the knowledge of the
antithetical, is outfitted in the struggle with evil by a new mighty armour -- by the
knowledge of evil, has received the possibility to overcome it from within, and not
merely externally to flee from it and cast it away, remaining powerless in the face
of its dark element. Man makes his way through the progression of the heroes of
Dostoevsky and attains to maturity, an inner freedom in relation to evil. But in
Dostoevsky there is a separation of the dual and inverted likenesses to illusory
being, of rejects upon the path of development. Suchlike are Svidrigalov, Peter
Verkhovensky, the eternal husband, Smerdyakov. This -- is but the chaff of straw,
for they do not truly exist. These beings lead a vampire-like existence.

            Dostoevsky makes the first of his revelations about human nature, very
substantially so, in his "Notes from the Underground", and he refines on these
disclosures in the "Legend of the Grand Inquisitor". He denies, first of all, that man
at the root of his nature strives for the advantageous, for happiness, for satisfaction,
or that human nature is rational. Within man there is enclosed a demand for the
arbitrary, for freedom in excess of any benefit, for an immeasurable freedom. Man
-- is essentially irrational. "I should not at all be surprised, -- says the hero of the
"Notes from the Underground", -- if suddenly from neither here nor there, amidst
the universal future harmony there should arise some sort of gentleman, with an
ignoble, or better to say, with a retrograd and sneering physiognomy, and with
arms akimbo at his sides in reproach he would say to all of us: should we not shove
aside for a time all this harmony, shove it underfoot, into the dust, solely with the
purpose, that all these logarithms be dispatched to the devil, and so that we again
may live by our own absurd will. (Italics mine. -- N.B.)  This would be still
nothing, yet there is the rub, that indeed undoubtedly he would find followers, for
thus so is man made. And all this from the emptiest of reasons, about which the
mere mention could not seem to obtain: namely from this, that man, always and
everywhere, whosoever he might be, might act thus as he wanted, and nowise thus,
as reason and advantage should demand him; he might even possibly want that
which is contrary to his own advantage, and sometimes even positively must. His
own particular willful and free desire, his very own, even though it be the most
wild caprice, his own fantasy, irritating sometimes even though to the point of
madness, -- this here is that verymost allowable, most advantageous advantage,
which comes under no sort of classification and from which all the systems and
theories fly off to the devil. And from what have all those wise men assumed, that
man has necessary some sort of normal, some sort of good-willing desire? From
what have they assuredly imagined, that to man is necessary an assuredly prudent-
advantageous desire? Alone necessary to man is only his own autonomous desire,
whatever this independence might cost him or to what it might lead him". In these
words is already given in rudimentary form that genius-endowed dialectic about
man, which further on takes shape through the fate of all the heroes of Dostoevsky,
and in a positive form finds its completion in the "Legend of the Grand Inquisitor".
"There is only one instance, only one, when man can intentionally, consciously
wish for himself the harmful, the absurd, even the most absurd, and it is namely: so
as to have the right to want for himself even the most absurd and not be bound by
the obligation to want for himself only the sensible. Indeed this most absurd,
indeed this his caprice in actual fact, gentlemen, is perhaps the most advantageous
of all for our brother from everything that is upon the earth, particularly in some
other instances. And partly perhaps it is the most advantageous advantage even in
that instance, where it brings evident harm and contradicts the most healthy
deductions of our reasoning about advantages, since that in every instance it
preserves for us that which is foremost and most dear, i.e. our person and our
individuality". (Italics mine. -- N.B.)  Man -- is not arithmetic, man -- is essentially
enigmatic and problematic. Human nature -- is polarised and antinomic to the very
end. "What indeed is it expected of man, as a being, endowed with such strange
qualities?" Dostoevsky gives blow after blow to all the theories and utopias of
human felicity, of human earthly bliss, of the ultimate constructs of harmony.
"Man desires the most destructive disputes, the most uneconomic nonsense, solely
for this, to mix into all this positive felicity his own destructive fantastic element. It
is particularly his own fantastic day-dreams, his own trivial absurdity that he
wishes to assert for himself, solely for this, that he can affirm for himself, that
people all are still people, and not some sort of forte-piano keys". "If you say, that
also all this can be reckoned out according to calculations, about the chaos, and the
darkness, and the curses, such that yet with the mere possibility of a prior
calculation everything should stop and reason prevail -- then man would
deliberately in this instance make himself mad, so as to be bereft of reason and to
have his own way. I believe in this, I answer for this, since indeed the whole
human matter, it seems, actually also consists but in this, that man should be
constantly able to demonstrate for himself, that he is a man, and not a pin-tack".
(Italics mine. -- N. B.)  Dostoevsky reveals the incommensurability of the free, the
contradictory and irrational human nature in contrast to rationalistic humanism,
with rationalistic theories of progress, with the ultimate goal of a rationalised social
organisation, with all the utopias about crystal palaces. All this represents for him a
degeneration for man, for human worthiness. "What yet herein would your will be,
when the matter is reduced to calculations and to arithmetic, when only alone there
will be twice two is four at the start? Twice two would be four even without my
will. What indeed your will would become!" "Is it not therefore, perhaps, that man
is so fond of destruction and chaos, in that he instinctively is afraid to reach the
goals and finish off the built edifice?… And who knows, perhaps, whether also
every end on the earth, towards which man strives, is but to be comprised in this
incessant process of attainment, or expressed otherwise -- in life itself, and not
particularly in the actual ends which, reasonably, ought to be naught other than
twice two is four, i.e. a formula, but indeed twice two is four is already not life,
gentlemen, but rather the beginning of death". (Italics mine. -- N.B.)  Arithmetic is
not applicable to human nature. Needful here is an higher mathematic. In man,
taken deeply, there is an impetus to suffering, a contempt for felicity. "And why
are you so firmly, so solemnly convinced, that only alone the normal and the
positive, in a word -- only alone prosperity is advantageous to man? Might not
reason be mistaken in the advantages? Indeed, perhaps, man might not love only
the thriving. Might it not be, that he just as equally love suffering? Might it not be,
that suffering for him be just as equally advantageous, as prosperity? And man is
terribly fond of suffering, passionately so… I am convinced, that man would never
renounce authentic suffering, i.e. destruction and chaos. Suffering, -- yes indeed
this is the sole principle of consciousness". In these amazingly keen thoughts of the
hero from the underground, Dostoevsky posits the basis of his own new
anthropology, which is disclosed in the fate of Raskol'nikov, Stavrogin, Myshkin,
Versilov, Ivan and Dmitrii Karamazov. L. Shestov pointed to the immense
significance of the "Notes from the Underground", but he investigated this work
exclusively from the side of the underground psychology and by this he provided
only an one-sided interpretation of Dostoevsky. 
  
  

VI

           The postulate mustneeds be considered, that the creativity of Dostoevsky

falls into two periods -- that of before the "Notes from the Underground" and that
of after the "Notes from the Underground". In between these two periods there
occurred for Dostoevsky a spiritual turnabout, after which there was revealed to
him something new concerning man. Only after this there also begins the real
Dostoevsky, the author of "Crime and Punishment" ("Prestuplenie i nakazanie"),
the "Idiot", the "Devils", the "Adolescent", the "Brothers Karamazov". In the first
period, when Dostoevsky wrote "Poor Folk" ("Bednye liudi"), "Notes from the
House of the Dead" ("Zapiski iz mertvogo doma"), the "Insulted and the
Humiliated", he was still an humanist, fine of soul, na?ve and not free of the
sentimental humanism. He was still under the influence of the ideas of Belinsky,
and in his creativity is felt the influence of George Sand, V. Hugo, Dickens. But
even then already was disclosed the uniqueness of Dostoevsky, though he had not
yet become fully himself. In this period he was still "Schiller". And with this name
he afterwards loved to call the fine souls, bowing to everything "lofty and
beautiful". Then already in the pathos of Dostoevsky there was a sympathy for
man, for the humiliated and the insulted. But beginning with the "Notes from the
Underground", man is perceived as knowing good and evil, and undergoing a
divisiveness. Dostoevsky becomes an enemy of the old humanism, he becomes an
exposer of humanistic utopias and illusions. In him conjoin the polarities of a
passionate love for man and hatred for man, of a fiery sympathy for man and yet
fierceness. He inherited the humanism of Russian literature, the Russian sympathy
for all the neglected, the wronged and the downtrodden, the Russian sense of the
value of the human soul. But he surmounted the na?ve, the elementary foundations
of the old humanism, and there was revealed to him a completely new, a tragic
humanism. In this regard Dostoevsky can be compared only with Nietzsche, in
whom the old European humanism came to an end, and as regards the new there
was set forth the tragic problem of man. Many a time this has been pointed out,
that Dostoevsky foresaw the ideas of Nietzsche. They were both heralds of a new
revelation about man, both were first of all great anthropologists, and the
anthropology of both -- was apocalyptic, approaching nigh the extremes, the limits
and the end-points. And thus, what Dostoevsky says about the man-god and
Nietzsche about the ubermensch, is an apocalyptic thought about man. And thus is
posited the problem of man by Kirillov. The image of Kirillov in the "Devils" is a
very Christian, though angelically pure idea of the liberation of man from the
power of all fear and the attainment of a Divine condition. "Whoso conquereth
pain and fear, that one himself becomes God. Then is a new life, then is a new
man, everything is anew". "Man would become god and transform the physical.
And the world would be transformed, and matter be transformed, and all thoughts
and sensations". "Everyone, who desires the chief freedom, that one ought to dare
to kill themself… Whoso dares to kill themself, that one is God". In another
conversation Kirillov says: "He wilt come and the name for him will be man-god".
"God-man?", -- questions Stavrogin. "No, the man-god, in this is the difference".
With this opposing point of view they then make very evil useage of a Russian
religio-philosophic thought. The idea of the man-god, manifest to Kirillov in its
pure spirituality, is a moment in the genius-endowed dialectic of Dostoevsky,
concerning man and his pathways. God-man and man-god -- are polarities of
human nature. This involves two paths -- either from God to man or from man to
God. In Dostoevsky there was not an invariably negative attitude to Kirillov, as
would be to an expressedly anti-Christ principle. The way of Kirillov -- is the way
of an heroic spirit, conquering all fear, striving towards the summits of freedom.
Yet Kirillov is only himself but one of the principles of human nature, by himself
insufficient, one of the poles of spirit. The exclusive triumph of this principle leads
to ruin. But for Dostoevsky, Kirillov is an inevitable moment in the revelation
about man. He was needful for the anthropological investigations of Dostoevsky.
Dostoevsky had entirely no desire to spell out the morale about how bad a thing it
is to strive after man-godhood. With him the immanent dialectic was always a
given. Kirillov -- was an anthropological experiment purely up in the air.

         By theme and by the method of an immanent dialectic, Dostoevsky reveals

the Divine foundation of man, the image of God in man, in the power of which not
"everything is permissible". This theme about whether all is permissible, i.e. of
what are the limits and the possibilities of human nature, persistently was of
interest to Dostoevsky, and he returns to it constantly. This -- is the theme of
Raskol'nikov and of Ivan Karamazov. Neither Raskol'nikov, a man of thought and
action, nor Ivan Karamazov, exclusively a man of thought, were able to overstep
the bounds, with all the tragedy of their lives they are forced to repudiate, that all is
permissible. But wherefore indeed not permissible? Can it be said, that they took
fright, that they sensed themselves ordinary people? The anthropologic dialectic of
Dostoevsky suggests otherwise. Of the infinite value of every human soul, though
it be the very least, of every human person he indicates, that it is not at all
permissible, it is not permissible to scorn the human person, its conversion into a
mere means is not permissible. The narrowed down of the scope of possibilities
with him is drawn  from the infinite expanse of the vast possibilities of every
human soul. A transgressive enroachment upon man is an enroachment upon this
infinity, upon the infinite possibilities. Dostoevsky always affirms the Divine
infinite value of the human soul, of the human person against every enroachment,
simultaneously both against transgression, and against theories of progress. This --
is a sort of ecstatic sense of the person and personal destiny. It is admissible to
think, that Dostoevsky was all his life most tormented by the question about the
immortality of the soul. But the question about immortality was for him also a
question about the nature of man and about human destiny. This -- was an
anthropological interest. Not only the question about immortality, but also the
question about God was subjected in Dostoevsky to the question about man and his
eternal destiny. God for him is revealed within the depths of man and through man.
God and immortality are revealed through the love of people, the relationship of
man to man. But man himself is audaciously exalted by him, lifted to an
extraordinary height. The little tears of a child, the weeping of children -- this is all
a question about the human destiny, posited by love. Because of the fate of man in
this world Dostoevsky was prepared not to accept the world of God. All the
dialectic of Ivan Karamazov, and also other of the heroes, -- is his own especial
dialectic. But with Dostoevsky himself everything is more complex and richer than
it is for his heroes, he knows more than them. The chief thing that Dostoevsky
finds need to search out is not in humility ("be thou humbled, haughty man"), it is
not in the consciousness of sin, but in the mystery of man, in freedom. With L.
Tolstoy, man -- is under the law. With Dostoevsky, man -- is in grace, in freedom.

VII

        Dostoevsky reaches the heights of his consciousness in the "Legend of the
Grand Inquisitor". Here his anthropologic revelations find completion, and the
problem of man is set forth in a new religious light. In the "Notes from the
Underground" man was acknowledged as essentially irrational, problematic, full of
contradictions, given to a thirst for the arbitrary and to a need for suffering. But
there it was merely a tangled and subtle psychology. There had not yet obtained
Dostoevsky's religious anthropology. It was discussed only in the Legend, narrated
by Ivan Karamazov. It had become possible only after the lengthy and tragic path,
traversed by man in "Crime and Punishment", the "Idiot", the "Devils", the
"Adolescent". And it is very remarkable, that the greatest of his revelations was
related by Dostoevsky through Ivan Karamazov, he expressed them not in the form
of ideological preaching, but in the embellished form of a "fantasy", in which
something ultimately glimmers forth, but the embellished aspect remains. Towards
the end something remains twofold, permitting of contrary interpretations, for
many almost dually ambiguous. And Alyosha is entirely right, when he exclaims to
Ivan: "thy poem is a praise to Jesus". Yes indeed, the greatest praise, which was
ever pronounced in the human tongue. The Catholic setting and expose of the
poem are not substantial. And it is completely possible to dismiss the polemics
against Catholicism. In this poem, Dostoevsky shifts his mystery about man close
up together with the mystery about Christ. Dearest of all to man is his freedom, and
the freedom of man is dearest of all to Christ. The Grand Inquisitor says: "Their
freedom of faith was dearest of all to Thee even then, fifteen hundred years ago.
Didst Thou not often then say: "I want to make ye free"… The Grand Inquisitor
wants to make people happy, organised and tranquil, he emerges as the bearer of
the eternal principle of human well-being and organisation. "He holds it to the
merit of him and his, that finally they have conquered freedom, and made it thus,
that people should be made happy... Man was constructed a rebel; but really can
rebels be happy?" And the Grand Inquisitor says with reproach to He that was
manifest the bearer of the infinite freedom of the human spirit: "Thou didst reject
the sole way, which could make people happy". "Thou didst wish to come into the
world and Thou didst come with bare hands, with some sort of promise of
freedom, which they, in their simplicity and their inborn rowdiness cannot even
think about, which they fear and are afraid of, for nothing and nowhere would there
be anything more intolerable for man and for human society than freedom!" The
Grand Inquisitor adopts the First Temptation in the Wilderness -- the temptation
with the loaves of bread, and upon it he wants to base the happiness of people.
"Freedom and earthly bread sufficient for everyone is inconceivable". People "will
be convinced, that they can never even be free, because they are weak, depraved,
insignificant and rebels. Thou didst promise them heavenly bread, but how can it
compare in the eyes of the weak, the eternally corrupt and eternally ungrateful
human race, how can it compare with the earthly?" And the Grand Inquisitor
accuses Christ of aristocratism, of a scornful neglect "for the millions,
innumerable, like the sands of the sea, the weak". He exclaims: "or are only the ten
thousand, great and strong, dear to Thee?" "No, for us the weak are also dear".
Christ rejected the First Temptation "in the name of freedom, which He put above
everything". "Instead of seizing control over the freedom of people, Thou didst
increase it all the more for them!… Thou didst take everything, which is
extraordinary, conjectural and indefinable, Thou didst take everything, that would
be beyond the power of people, and didst therefore act, as even though not loving
them at all… Instead of seizing control over people's freedom, Thou didst multiply
it and enburden its kingdom of the soul of man with torments forever. Thou didst
desire the free love of man, so that freely he should follow after Thee, charmed and
captivated by Thee. In place of the harsh ancient law, with a free heart instead
ought man to decide for himself henceforth, what is good and what is evil, having
but for hand-guidance only Thine Image before him". "Thou didst not come down
from the Cross, since that therefore Thou again desired not to enslave man by a
miracle and Thou hast craved a free belief, not by miracle. Thou hast craved a free
love, and not the slave-like raptures of the unfree before mightiness, once always
terrifying him. But here also Thou didst adjudge too very highly as regards people,
since ultimately, they are slaves". "Esteeming man so much, Thou didst act, as
though ceasing to have compassion for him, since also Thou didst demand too
much from him… Esteeming him less, Thou wouldst demand less from him, and
this would be nearer to love, since it would be easier bearing it". "Thou canst with
pride point to those children of freedom, their free love, their free and magnificent
sacrifice in Thy Name. But remember, that of them there were only several
thousands, and indeed godly, but the rest? And in what are the remaining weak
people guilty in, that they could not endure, what the mighty ones could? With
what is the weak soul culpable, that it has not the strength to accommodate such
terrible gifts? Art Thou indeed come really but to the chosen and for the chosen?"
And then the Grand Inquisitor exclaimed: "we are not with Thee, but with him,
herein is our mystery!" And he sketches out a picture of the happiness and
contentment of millions of weak beings, deprived of freedom. At the end he says:
"I did depart from the haughty and returned back to the dead for the happiness of
these dead". For his justification he points to "the thousand millions of happy
infants".

           In this genius-endowed metaphysical poem, perhaps the greatest of all

written by mankind, Dostoevsky reveals the struggle of two principles in the world
-- of Christ and of Anti-Christ, of freedom and of compulsion. The Grand
Inquisitor speaks all the time as the enemy of freedom, scorning man, wanting to
make happy though compulsion. But in this negative form Dostoevsky reveals his
positive teaching about man, about his infinite worthiness, about his infinite
freedom. That which was foreshadowed in negative form in the "Notes from the
Underground", now in a positive form is revealed in this poem. This -- is a poem
about the proud and lofty freedom of man, about the infinite height of his vocation,
about the infinite abilities lodged within man. In this poem is situated a completely
exclusive sensation of Christ. It is striking the similarity of the spirit of Christ with
the spirit of Zarathustra. The Anti-Christ principle -- is not Kirillov with his
striving towards man-godhood, but rather the Grand Inquisitor with his striving to
deprive people of freedom in the name of happiness. The Anti-Christ for Vl.
Solov'ev possesses features, akin to the Grand Inquisitor. The spirit of Christ
values freedom more than happiness, the spirit of Anti-Christ values happiness
more than freedom. The higher, the God-image worthiness of man demands the
right to arbitrary freedom and to suffering. Man -- is a tragic being, and in this is a
sign of his belonging not only to this, but also to another world. For a tragic being,
containing infinity within him, the penultimate order, tranquility and happiness
upon the earth is possible only by way of renunciation of freedom, of renunciation
of the image of God within him. The thoughts of the underground man are
transformed in the new Christian revelation, they proceed through the cleansing
fire of all the tragedies of Dostoevsky. The "Legend of the Grand Inquisitor" is a
revelation about man, set into an intimate connection with the revelation of Christ.
This -- is an aristocratic anthropology. The Anti-Christ can assume various and
very contrary guises, from the very Catholic to the very socialistic, from the very
much of Caesar to the very democratic. But the Anti-Christ principle always is
hostile to man, destructive of the dignity of man. That blindingly inverted light,
which falls from the demonic words of the Grand Inquisitor, comprises within
itself more religious a revelation, than the discourse of Zosima, than the image of
Alyosha. And herein it becomes necessary to search out the key to the great
anthropological revelations of Dostoevsky, for his positive religious idea
concerning man.

VIII

           The "soil" ideology of Dostoevsky himself, which he developed in his

articles, situates his religious populism at variance to his unique revelation
concerning man. Within his novels is hidden away a different ideology, with
genius, a profound metaphysics of life and of man. Dostoevsky was a populist, but
he never portrays the people. They comprise it exceptionally in the "Notes from the
House of the Dead". But there also, it involves a world of criminals, and not the
people in its everyday life. The stasis of the people, the peasant way of life, its
being did not interest him. He -- was a writer of the city, of the city intelligentsia
stratum, or of the stratum of the petty officials and citizens. In the life of the city,
preeminently Peterburg, and in the soul of the citizen, alienated from the people's
soil, he revealed an exceptional dynamic, and disclosed the limits of human nature.
In a whirlwind of motion, at the limits are located also all those Captains Lebyakin,
Snegirevs and others. Of interest to him were not the people intensely of the soil,
the people on the land, with their way of life, the believers from the soil, the
ordinary traditions. He always took hold of human nature poured forth into a fiery
atmosphere. And he was uninterested, unneedful of the human nature chilled
down, statically congealed. He was interested only by those split off, he loved the
Russian vagabond. He revealed within the Russian soul the source of eternal
stirrings, of wandering, seeking after the new City. As regards Dostoevsky,
characteristic for the Russian soul is not the soil, not the sailing to firm shores, but
rather the coursing of the soul beyond all the borders and limits. Dostoevsky
displays an image of Russian man in his boundlessness. The soil existence,
however, is an existence within boundaries.

           The creativity of Dostoevsky is in full not only a revelation about human
nature in general, but also particular revelations about the nature of Russian man,
about the Russian soul. And in this no one can compare with him. He penetrates
into the profoundest metaphysics of the Russian spirit. Dostoevsky revealed the
polarity of the Russian spirit as its profoundest peculiarity. What a distinctness
there is in this Russian spirit from the monism of the German spirit! When a
German plunges himself into the depths of his spirit, he finds Divineness in the
depths, and all polarities and all contradictions dissipate. And therein it transpires,
that for the German in the depths man is dissipated away, man exists merely on the
periphery, only in appearance, and not in essence. Russian man is more
contradictory and antinomic, than is the Western, within us is conjoined the soul of
Asia and the soul of Europe, of East and West. This discloses great possibilities for
Russian man. Man is less open and less active in Russia, than in the West, but he
more complex and rich in his depths, in the inwardness of his life. The nature of
man, of the human soul ought most of all to reveal itself in Russia. In Russia is
possible a new religious anthropology. Separatism, the roving and wandering -- are
Russian traits. Western man is more of the soil, he is more faithful to traditions and
more subject to norms. Russian man is expansive. Vastness, unboundedness,
unlimitedness -- is not only a material property of the Russian nature, but also its
metaphysical and spiritual property, its more inward dimension. Dostoevsky
displayed a dreadsome and fiery-passioned Russian element, which lay obscured
for Tolstoy and the Populist writers. He artfully revealed within the cultural
intelligentsia stratum that selfsame terrifying sensuous element, that among the
people's stratum found its expression in the Khlysty. This orgiastic ecstatic element
lived within Dostoevsky himself, and to the depths he was a Russian in this
element. He investigated the metaphysical hysteria of the Russian spirit. This
hysteria is from the formlessness of the Russian spirit, a lack of subjection to limit
and norm. Dostoevsky revealed, that Russian man always is needful of mercy and
is himself sparing. In the order of Western life there is a mercilessness, connected
with the subjection of man to discipline and norm. And Russian man is more
human than Western man. With what Dostoevsky revealed about the nature of
Russian man, is connected both the greatest possibilities, and the greatest dangers.
The spirit still has not attained mastery over the soul element in Russian man. In
Russian man the nature is less active, than in West, but in Russia there is inherent a
greater human wealth, greater human possibilities, than in the measured-out and
boundaried Europe. And in the Russian idea, Dostoevsky saw the "all-humanness"
of Russian man, his infinite expanse and infinite possibilities. Dostoevsky
constitutes everything from the contradictions, just like the soul of Russia. The
way out, which is sensed from the readings of Dostoevsky, is by way of an egress
through gnostic revelations about man. Dostoevsky created an extraordinary type
of artistic-gnostic anthropology, his method is one of drawing into the depths of
the human spirit through an ecstatic whirlwind. But the ecstatic whirlwinds of
Dostoevsky are spiritual and therefore they never shatter the image of man.
Dostoevsky alone did not fear, that in ecstasy and boundlessness man would
disappear. The limits and forms of the human person are always connected with
Apollonism. With Dostoevsky alone the form of ma, his eternal image remains
also within spiritual Dionysianism. Even transgression does not annihilate man for
him. And death is not terrifying for him, since for him eternity always is revealed
in man. He -- is an artist not in that impersonal abyss, in which there is no image of
man, but of an human abyss, of human fathomlessness. In this he is foremost in the
world of writers, of world geniuses, one of the foremost minds, as is seldom seen
in history. This great mind was entirely in an active relationship to man, he
revealed other worlds through man. Dostoevsky was like Russia, with all its
darkness and light. And he -- is the greatest contribution of Russia to the spiritual
life of the whole world. Dostoevsky -- is a most Christian writer, since at the centre
for him stands man, stands human love and the disclosure of the human soul. He
fully -- is the revelation of the heart of the human being, the Heart of Jesus! 
 

                                                                           Nikolai  Berdyaev

                                                                                1918

©  2002  by translator Fr. S. Janos

(1918 - 294 - en)

OTKROVENIE  O  CHELOVEKE  V  TVORCHESTVE  DOSTOEVSKOGO.

Published in Journal "Russkaya Mysl'", March-April 1918,  p. 39-61.

  Article subsequently reprinted and included by YMCA Press Paris in 1989 in the
Berdyaev Collection: “Tipy religioznoi mysli v Rossii”, (Tom III),  p. 68-98.

Е-текст по-русский: Кротова.

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