![]() ![]() Dostoevsky looks at the polemics of the traditionalists and the 'maskilim' and perceives it as a parallel to Russian debates around the Westernization. Vice versa, he is rigorously critical to the secular ones. Thus, he is mostly sympathetic to 'serious Jews' – traditionalists. Dostoevsky bindingly connects Jews with Judaism, i.e. Based on private letters of Dostoevsky and his journalism, we derive two Jewish images – positive and negative – which are quite constant in the writer's texts. We find the writer's affinity to use words 'a Jew', 'a Hebrew' and even 'an Yid' with dubious or even without any links to real Jews. In the article, we trace how Dostoevsky uses words which traditionally refer to Jews and show their semantics as highly dispersed. After 1920s, Dosto-evsky's attitude toward Jews turns into a difficult topic of Dostoevsky Studies. Arkadii Kovner's and Sophia Lurie's letters to Dostoevsky are quite known as well as their direct indictment of the writer in Anti-Semitism. ![]() The fashion of how Dostoevsky portraits them was questionable even at the writer's lifespan. Amidst the nations represented in Dostoevsky's oeuvre, there are some Jews. never act as individuals with their personal life but rather as 'carriers' of some national idea. ![]() Russians, Poles, Englishmen, Germans, Turks, Greeks etc. In his fiction, journalism and letters, Dostoevsky recurrently mentions ethnicity of his protagonists. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |