Dostoyevsky, The Man Behind: Memoirs, Letters & Autobiographical Works. Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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СКАЧАТЬ because he did not yet understand the real meaning of the Russian monarchy. At this period of his life Dostoyevsky knew little of Russia. He had spent his childhood in a kind of artificial Lithuania created by his father in the heart of Moscow. In his adolescence at the Castle of the Engineers he held aloof as far as possible from his Russian comrades. When he became a novehst he frequented the literary society of Petersburg, the least stable in the whole country. At that time Russia was practically unknown; our geographers and historians hardly existed as yet. Travelling was difficult and expensive. There were neither railways nor steamers in the country. The peasant-serfs worked their land and kept silence; the moujik was called "a sphynx." The Russian writers lived only by the mind of Europe, read only French, EngUsh and German books, and shared all the ideas of Europeans concerning liberty. Instead of informing Europe as to Russian ideas, our writers ingenuously asked Europe to explain to them what Russia was. Now if my compatriots knew little of Russia, Europe knew nothing of it. European writers, scientists, statesmen and diplomatists did not learn the Russian language, did not travel in Russia, did not take the trouble to go and study the moujik in his home. They were content to get their information from the political refugees who inhabited their towns. All these Jews, Poles, Lithuanians, Armenians, Finns and Letts could not even speak Russian, and talked the most terrible jargon. This did not prevent them from addressing Europe in the name of the Russian people. They assured Europeans that the moujiks were groaning under the yoke of the Tsars, and were waiting impatiently for the nations of Europe to come and deliver them, in order to give them that European repubhc of which (according to the refugees) the moujik was dreaming day and night. Europe took their word for it. It has only been in our own days, when Europeans have seen " Tsarism" replaced by Bolshevism and defaitisme, that they have begun to understand how they have been deceived. It will be a long time yet before they understand the true Russia. Meanwhile the Russian Colossus has many rude awakenings and unpleasant surprises in store for them.

      At the time of the Petrachevsky conspiracy my father was more Lithuanian than Russian, and Europe was dearer to him than his fatherland. The novels he wrote before his imprisonment were all imitations of European works : Schiller, Balzac, Dickens, Georges Sand and Walter Scott were his masters. He believed in the European newspapers as one believes in the Gospels. He dreamed of going to live in Europe, and declared that he could only learn to write well there. He talked of this project in his letters to his friends, and lamented that lack of means prevented him from carrying it out. The thought that it might be well to go east instead of west, in order to become a great Russian writer, never entered his head. Pogtpyevsky hated the Mongohan strain in the Russians; he was a true Ivan Karamazov at this time of his life.

      The emancipation of the serfs was then imminent. Every one was talking of it, and every one realised the necessity for it. Our government, true to its tradition, hesitated to make the reform. The Russians, who understood their own slow and indolent national character knew that they had only to wait patiently for a year or two and they would obtain it. The Poles, the Lithuanians and the natives of the Baltic Provinces did not understand this delay, and believed that the Tsar would never give liberty to his people. They proposed to overthrow him in order to secure it themselves for the peasants. Dostoyevsky shared their misgivings. He knew nothing of Oriental indolence; all his life he was active and energetic. When an idea seemed right to him he at once put it into practice; he could not understand the dilatoriness of the Russian bureaucracy. He could not forget his father's tragic death, and he ardently desired the abohtion of a system which made the masters cruel and incited the slaves to crime. In his then state of mind, the meeting with Petrachevsky was bound to have fatal results. Petrachevsky, as his name indicates, was of Polish or Lithuanian origin, and this was a bond of union between him and Dostoyevsky stronger than all the rest. Petrachevsky was eloquent and adroit; he drew all the young dreamers in Petersburg around him and inflamed them. The idea of sacrificing oneself to the happiness of others is very attractive to young and generous hearts, especially when their own lives are as sad as was my father's at that time. During his lonely wanderings in the dark streets of Petersburg, he must often have said to himself that it would be better to die in a noble cause than to drag out a useless existence.

      The Petrachevsky trial is one of the most obscure of all Russian political trials. The secret documents which have been published give but a very commonplace picture of a political gathering, where young people met to repeat truisms about the new ideas which were arriving from Europe, to lend each other books forbidden by the Censor, and to declaim incendiary fragments from revolutionary pamphlets. Nevertheless, my father always maintained that it was a political plot, the object of which was to overthrow the Tsar, and set up a repubhc of intellectuals in Russia. It is probable that Petrachev-sky, while preparing an army of volunteers, confided the secret aims of the enterprise only to a chosen few. Appreciating Dostoyevsky's mind, courage and moral force, Petrachevsky probably intended him to play a leading part in the future republic.35

      35 One of the members of the Petrachevsky association gave it as his opinion that Dostoyevsky was the only one of the band who was a typical conspirator. He was sUent and reserved, not given to opening his heart to every one after the Russian fashion. This reticence persisted all his life. He maintained it even towards my mother, and in the early days of their marriage she found it very difficult to make him speak of his past life. Later, however, when Dostoyevsky reaUsed how devoted his second wife was to tdm, he opened his heart to her, and had no more secrets from her.

      My uncle Mihail, was also interested in the society, but as he was married, and the father of a family, he thought it wise not to frequent the Petrachevsky gatherings too assiduously. He took advantage, however, of the library of forbidden books. My uncle was at this time a great admirer of Fourier, and a fervid student of his romantic theories. My uncle Andrey also attended the meetings. At this period he was a very young man, and had only just begun his higher courses of study. He was many years younger than his two elder brothers, and looked upon them rather as parents than as equals. The older men in their turn, treated him as a little boy. Such relations do not exist among Russians, but they are often found in Polish and Lithuanian families. My father never discussed politics with his younger brother, and my uncle Audrey was unaware of the part he was playing in Petrachevsky's society. Audrey Dostoyevsky had none of the literary talent of his brothers; but the family readings which my grandfather Mihail continued for the benefit of his younger sons gave him a great interest in literature. Later, when serving the State in various provincial towns, he always managed to draw all the intellectuals of the place round him. Having heard of the interesting gatherings that took place at Petrachevsky's house, he begged one of his comrades to introduce him. He attended several meetings without encountering my father. One evening, when my uncle Audrey was passing from group to group, listening with great interest to the political discussions of the young men, he suddenly found himself confronted by his brother Fyodor, whose face was white and drawn with anger.

      " What are you doing here ? " he asked in a terrible voice. " Go away, go away at once, and let me never see you in this house again."

      My uncle was so alarmed by his elder brother's anger that he left Petrachevsky's reception immediately, and never returned. When the police discovered the plot later on, all three Dostoyevsky brothers were arrested. My uncle Audrey's ingenuous replies made it evident to the judges that he knew nothing of the conspiracy, and he was soon released. The anger of his brother had saved him. My uncle Mihail was kept in prison for some weeks. Dostoyevsky said later in the Journal of the Writer, that Mihail knew a great deal. It is probable that my father had no secrets from him. My uncle also knew how to hold his tongue, and he confessed nothing. He was able to prove easily that he rarely visited Petrachevsky and only went to his house to borrow books. He was eventually released, and Prince Gagarin, who was looking into his case, knowing the affection that existed between the two brothers, hastened to let my father know that his brother had been liberated, and that he need have no further fears on his account. My father never forgot this generous action on the part of Prince Gagarin, and he spoke of it later in the Journal of the Writer.

      Dostoyevsky was treated more harshly than his brothers. He had been sent to the Peter-Paul fortress, the terrible prison of political conspirators. Here he spent the most miserable months of his life. He did СКАЧАТЬ