Journal: Global Journal of Classical Theology
Volume: GJCT 20:2 (Dec 2023)
Article: Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (1821–1881): Christian Mystic And Social Philosopher
Author: Joseph David Rhodes

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (1821–1881): Christian Mystic And Social Philosopher

Joseph David Rhodes

Concordia Teachers College

i I will tell you that at such moments one thirsts for faith as ‘the parched grass,’ and one finds it at last because truth becomes evident in unhappiness. I will tell you that I am a child of my century, a child of disbelief and doubt, I am that today and (I know it) will remain so until the grave. How much terrible torture this thirst for faith has cost me and costs me even now, which is all the stronger in my soul the more arguments I can find against it. And yet, God sends me sometimes instants when I am completely calm; at those instants I love and 1 feel loved by others, and it is at these instants that I have shaped for myself a Credo where everything is clear and sacred for me. This Credo is very simple, here it is: to believe that nothing is more beautiful, profound, sympathetic, reasonable, manly, and more perfect than Christ; and I tell myself with a jealous love that not only that there is nothing but that there cannot be anything. Even more, if someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth, and that in reality the truth were outside of Christ, then I should remain with Christ rather than with the truth (Pisma, edited and annotated by A.S. Dolinin, 4 vols. Moscow, 1928–1959, I:142, cited in Joseph Frank, Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1849–1859, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983, p. 160).

i Dostoevsky became more intimately acquainted with his own people in Siberia; he mingled with the muzhik and persuaded himself that this thief, murderer and drunkard still had that essential kernel or spark within him without which human life is impossible. He saw at first hand both the muzhik’s faith and his love for his fellowman. This was the core of Dostoevsky’s early message from Siberia to his friend A. Maykov, and it is a theme to which he returns again and again at later times to explain the changes within himself which occurred during his Siberian exile.... (Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, The Spirit of Russia. Edited by George Gibian and translated by Robert Bass, Vol. III; New York: Barnes & Noble, 1967, p. 140. Cf. Masaryk’s source in F.M. Dostoevsky, Polnae Sobranie Sochinenii, ed. and annotated by G.M. Fridlender, et al., 30 vols. Leninqrad, 1972, X, P. 304 and I, p. 198).

This paper will explore the following thesis: Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s work among the early socialist movement (the famous “Petrashevsky circle”) and his later repudiation of it entailed a unique religious perspective and synthesis in nineteenth century Russian thought. His view incorporated a certain mystical reaffirmation of Orthodox Christianity united to a fervent Russian nationalism, both which were set forth in a masterful urbane literary ...