Defending Dostoevsky: The History of Dvosya Sorkina’s 1956 Dissertation

The article reconstructs the history of Dvosia Lvovna Sorkina’s (1922–2011) dissertation, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Novel The Idiot and the Socio-Literary Struggle of the 1860s. The dissertation was defended at Leningrad University in 1956. The article is based on archival and published sources, including previously unpublished letters from Dvosya Sorkina to her academic advisor, prof. Arkady Dolinin, a prominent researcher of Dostoevsky. Sorkina started her research in the mid-1940s, but the ideology of late Stalinism was markedly unfriendly to the study of the great Russian writer. The ideological campaign launched in 1947 against Dostoevsky’s legacy significantly hampered progress of the dissertation. Increasing ideological pressure on philological scholarship over the years resulted in even official opponents (Grigory Byaly and Alexander Dementyev) seeking to distance themselves from the dangerous topic, thereby complicating the submission of the dissertation for defense. In 1950, a fateful event for Dostoevsky studies occurred: the publication of Lenin’s letter to Inessa Armand, sharply criticizing the great Russian writer. Since Lenin’s views were treated as tantamount to a party directive, after 1950, the communist press frequently cited this letter to discredit Dostoevsky’s legacy. As a result, Dostoevsky’s name was removed from university curricula, his works ceased to be published, and Dostoevsky studies were effectively banned outright. It was only after Stalin’s death that Dostoevsky was rehabilitated, allowing Dvosya Sorkina, during the thaw of the Khrushchev era, to resume her work. In 1956, she successfully defended her dissertation and later became a renowned scholar in Dostoevsky’s tudies.