Dostoyevsky’s Religion

Published
by
Friedrich Braun
on October 8, 2008
in Atheism/Agnosticism, Books and Christianity
.

Dostoyevsky is my favorite author. I started reading him during my undergraduate days when I took a Russian literature course. He was also a very good anti-Semite (as all good people should be) (here).

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s views on religion are notoriously hard to pin down with confidence. If you collected up the criticism devoted to Tolstoy, there could be no doubt about what he believed at any stage of his journey. Yet in the history of Dostoevsky criticism we find, for example, Henry Miller reading Dostoevsky as a great social revolutionary, whereas others have seen him as a diehard conservative. Rowan Williams, in his latest book, quotes (and rebuts) William Hamilton, who sought to enlist Dostoevsky as a forerunner of “Death of God” theology; Georges Florovsky, who saw Dostoevsky as an exemplar of Russian Orthodoxy; Malcolm Jones, who has linked him to “post-atheism” in contemporary Russia, and judged him to exemplify the workings of “minimal religion”. Clearly, all these contradictory readings cannot be right. Or can they? Is that precisely the nature of the difficulty?

3 Responses to “Dostoyevsky’s Religion”

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  1. 1 Othelma_Jr
    October 9, 2008 at 12:36 am

    Holy Smokes!

    Dostoyevsky was an (egads) anti-semite!

    The more I learn about History, the more I am astounded at how many Great Men despised these beings. Luther, Ford, Voltaire… the list is long!

    They couldn’t ALL HAVE BEEN WRONG could they?!?!?!?!?!

  2. 2 William of OC
    October 9, 2008 at 4:55 pm

    Not a chance. The Jews deserve it.

  3. 3 outside
    October 10, 2008 at 9:36 pm

    I kept a picture of Dostoyevsky in my locker during High School.

    Has anyone ever noticed how many European authors’ works are translated into English by Jews? Nietzsche translations by Walter Kaufmann come to mind. Imagine the implications of Jewish translations. At crucial moments, subtle points regarding Jews and their pet ideologies could be skewed to Jewish advantage - just another example of Jews taking control of definitions.

    I have a friend, undeniably bright, who has read Nietzsche extensively and thinks Friedrich liked Hebes. His shelves are lined with Kaufmann translations and readers. When I pointed out that a Jew couldn’t be trusted to convey Friedrich’s writings on Jews he puzzled for a moment and said “Y’know, I never noticed that all my Nietzsche stuff was translated by the same guy. These are just the course books from my university days, and a few recommendations of my instructor.”

    Newly aware of circumstances, there is hope for my friend, but not for thousands who don’t even stop to realize the significance of a translator’s name.

    The works of one race belong to that race alone.

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