Lev Karsavin’s Dostoevsky

Abstract The thought of Lev Karsavin—like all representatives of the Russian religious and philosophical renaissance—is deeply rooted in the work and ideas of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. However, instead of focusing on the broad relationship between the two thinkers, we focus here on a specific aspect of their connection: two significant articles by Karsavin on Dostoevsky. These are: Dostoevsky and Catholicism (1922) and—or rather primarily— Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov as an ideologist of love (1921). After a short presentation of the first text, I will try to show the debatable, controversial, but also inspiring and even daring nature of the second text.