Dostoevsky and Holy Russia: from the ‘symbol of faith’ to the Russian idea

The article analyzes the influence of the Holy Russia religious-patriotic discourse on the genesis of Dostoevsky’s Russian idea. More specifically, the study focuses on the version of the ‘Holy Russia discourse’ found in 1830s–1850s Russian poetry and mirrored in one of Dostoevsky’s few poetic declarations — the poem ‘On European Events in 1854.’ The discourse endowed the poem with the motif of heroism and the uniqueness of Russian history, imperial mission, and Orthodoxy. Dostoevsky’s poem demonstrates ideological and poetological innovation in that it actualizes the motifs of suffering and sacrifice, refers to Christ as the moral ideal, and features a polyphonic exchange between the voice of the ‘small man’ and that of the author. Further exploration of the Holy Russia discourse continues throughout Dostoevsky’s subsequent works, both fictional and non-fictional. The scholar posits that, while determined by the religious-patriotic discourse of Holy Russia, Dostoevsky’s Russian idea at the very outset rejects one of key premises of that discourse — namely, the emphasized distinction between ‘ours/ourselves’ and ‘foreigners/others.’ Korolyova suggests that the plots of the writer’s ‘Great Pentateuch’ should be interpreted as artistic experiments testing the Russian idea.